Quote ="samwire"the 2 aren't mutually exclusive. there's a small community group round our way that has spent a great deal of time and effort improving a local woodland to make it more accessible/user friendly, however, there's a pond that has collected tons of silt over the years and to clean it up will take £25k or something yet successive councils have dragged their heels and made excuses and i think finally, with council seats in the balance a bit of pressure on the 'i will not vote for you' front has got the money found. there's bugger all selfish about that.'"
On a national scale though, ultimately the prime purpose of a government is to spend the nations income in our name, for our benefit, without that they have no other purpose and too often political dogma influences those decisions.
To take the NHS as one very simple example, is it better run in state or private hands, if we spend half of the NHS budget on private contractors are we certain that we are getting a better service for all of us who use it, is it cheaper, is there any point in going down the privatisation line if its not cheaper and better, is the money being recirculated back into the economy by way of wages to UK citizens and procurement from UK companies, are the profits being taken (profit is not a dirty word) excessive at the expense of wages and procurement, are company taxes being properly paid in the UK on those profits.
Its never as simple a question of "Private is better than public ownership", sometimes it will be, sometimes its not - that is what we should be paying the politicians to analyse and decide on our behalf across all 650 seats without party prejudice, invoking party whips on crucial votes is an admission of defeat and a sign that party dogma is being enforced by the puppet masters who are rarely elected and often benefitting from the vote.
