Royal Mail,Eurostar, Northern Rock and so much more: this is ideological asset-stripping on a scale Margaret Thatcher could only own dreamed ofSelling off the family silver: that was the accusation against Margaret Thatcher, or when Harold Macmillan condemned her with resoundingly aristocratic disdain. “The sale of assets is common with individuals and the state when they escape into financial difficulties. First the Georgian silver goes,and then all the kind furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.” He ventured “to question the using of these huge sums as if they were income.”The wise worn man warned in the Lords: “contemporary economists own decided there is no contrast between capital and income. I am not so sure.” He recalled 1929, “when your Lordships had friends, and very beneficial friends,who failed to make this distinction. For a few years everything went well, and then at last the crash came, and they were forced to retire to some dingy lodging-house in Boulogne.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com