Let’s end the fixation with privatisation

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/04/alternatives-to-the-neoliberal-agenda

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Royal Bank of Scotland’s recent losses (Report, 1 May) should tell us that if privatisation is the answer, we have been asking the wrong question. Taxpayers have taken all the pain of cleaning up the mess, so instead of rushing into a cut-price sale of our stake in RBS, why don’t we treat our investment as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform UK banking? Devolving RBS’s retail arm into a network of 130 independently run local banks, held in trust for the public benefit, could provide a huge boost to SME lending, improve access to banking services and reduce the fragility of our financial system. Such local banking networks are common among our industrial competitors. For any government to sell shares in RBS without properly considering the other options would be an act of negligence.Christine BerryNew Economics Foundation

• At last – two powerful articles exploding the myth of austerity (James Meek, 28 April, and Paul Krugman, 29 April). But even they do not go far enough. Since the 1980s, all the major parties have backed the primacy of market forces, privatisation and the profit motive: the neoliberal agenda. In the case of the Conservatives this has included shrinking the state.

The result has been disastrous – but we are not challenging it head on. Staff in the NHS and in education have been demoralised by endless change and creeping privatisation. The welfare system is based no longer on sharing and compassion but on suspicion and hostility. Prisons are run by private companies. Taxation has become a bad word. We find ourselves operating on principles that no longer reflect what this country has traditionally believed in. It is this that the election should be about. But Labour has fallen for the austerity myth and tinkers at the edges.Dr Jan ArriensBishop’s Castle, Shropshire

• I have been concerned that the expected electoral successes by the SNP would threaten a potential Labour majority. Paul Krugman suggests, however, that Nicola Sturgeon’s offer to provide a bit of anti-austerity backbone to a minority Labour government may be the only hope for the stagnant UK economy.Douglas RichardsonEdinburgh