Private Greed & Public Grievance

Whatever public goals we aim to pursue, we are repeatedly told, private money and the profit motive are needed to deliver greater investment and efficiency. But in practice, opening the door to private greed routinely leads to costly mismanagement and ultimately, public grievance.

The infamous Private Finance Initiative has shown us how the ‘clever’ device of getting private companies to build facilities that are then leased to public bodies costs us all a great deal more money – solely to inflate the profits of the profiteering firms who got in on the act. The National Audit Office and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research have found that what private companies charge over time for the use of those facilities may exceed by over three times what it would have cost if the public sector had constructed them directly. Some have argued that getting the private sector to cover the up-front costs helps with borrowing funds to pay for those facilities, but studies into NHS and school PFI schemes reveal that private sector borrowing actually means that the overall costs are between 40% to 70% higher than identical projects financed by direct government borrowing. Furthermore, PFI contracts lock public bodies into long term payments (for routine maintenance and other facilities-related services) that would be substantially lower if they were able to cover those services themselves or tender them out to a range of suppliers. Figures reviewed in 2024 found that the UK government had 700 PFI contracts with a capital value of £57bn, but tied to paying out around £160bn to cover the agreements with the private firms involved.

Another lesson comes from the use of private equity and borrowing by commercial companies to take over public utilities. The privatisers’ argument is that profit-driven enterprises would invest more and lower costs. In reality, the so-called ‘investors’ fund their control of our water supply, for example, with 20% equity and 80% debt. We pay for our water usage, but the money goes into dividends for shareholders, and servicing the debt these ‘investors’ have loaded onto us. Since 1992 no new reservoir has been completed in the country by these profiteers. A report on Yorkshire Water found that around a third of every household bill paid to that company went to fund investors’ dividends and cover their debt bill. As for the famed private sector efficiency, this was well illustrated by Yorkshire Water’s dumping of raw sewage into rivers once every 18 minutes (figures for between 2016 and 2021; source: Environment Agency, and Weldon, D. ‘Owned by Private Equity’, The New Statesman, 17-23 April 2023).

Public resources have also been depleted by selling them off at a discount to private buyers. Since 1980, over 2.4 million council homes have been sold off below market rate, handing an estimated £194 billion of public housing wealth to private owners (see: https://www.common-wealth.org/publications/wrong-to-sell). Almost 40% of council properties sold under the Right to Buy scheme are now owned by private landlords, pushing up costs for those on low incomes. With a shortage of public housing, it means that rents for remaining council tenants rose sharply – by 1991 they were 55% higher, relative to average earnings, than they had been 10 years earlier. This continuous loss of affordable public housing is a major factor behind the national housing crisis.

Wherever we look – privatised energy firms profiteering from excessive charges that would not have been levied by public utilities; private prisons in the US incentivising judges to incarcerate more offenders to boost their income; private consultants providing advice to governments on policies they could undermine when they act for their commercial clients – the involvement of private interests should never be approved without the closest scrutiny and effective safeguards put in place. Anyone who says otherwise is either immensely naïve or shamelessly devious.

--

Note: Despite the glaring flaws of PFI, it had been reported that some in the Treasury were tempted to turn to PFI again (albeit under the barely disguised name of PPP – Public-Private Partnership) to finance infrastructure construction for new towns.

The Abuse Pandemic

Abusive behaviour has been spreading at an alarming rate. Before we consider how society should respond, we should take stock of the problem. It is no exaggeration to say that far too many people have become infected with the tendency to insult, intimidate, even injure others just because they ‘feel’ aggrieved about something beyond the control of those they mistreat.

Incidents of hostility towards public-facing workers rose by 20% in a year, with 737,000 incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers recorded by the British Retail Consortium. A recent survey found that on average 180 attacks against NHS and council workers were reported every day. Physical assaults, sexual harassment, and racist abuse are now common. Latest data showed that nearly 1 in 7 NHS staff (14.5%) were physically attacked by patients or the public in 2025. 

The contagion is affecting the young as well. Between 2020-21 and 2024-25, there were more than 55,000 suspensions linked to racist abuse at English schools. During that time, homophobic or transphobic abuse was logged more than 13,000 times, while disablist abuse was registered about 1,600 times.

Meanwhile, street protests frequently turn abusive and violent. Fuelled by anti-immigrant sentiments and hatred towards refugees, participants in the 2024 summer riots damaged properties and threatened lives. Of those arrested, 40% were found to have been previously reported for domestic abuse. Being abusive had apparently become part of their psychological DNA.

What is to be done? Some people suggest we should revive firm authority at every level – demanding unquestioning deference and commanding submissive compliance. But they have forgotten how such an approach leads to its own proliferation of abuse. Remove all scrutiny and accountability, the virus of abuse will spread through the misuse of power, excessive force, corrupt practice, vile intimidation, and so on, until fear and injustice saturate our social atmosphere.

Tyranny is not the solution to anarchy. 

What we should turn to is a robust system to counter abusive behaviour. This will have four components:

[1] Rapid Reaction: clear warning is to be given as to the types of behaviour which will be deemed abusive, and how anyone behaving in such a manner will be swiftly detained by the relevant authority for a proportionate period (from a few hours to longer depending on the severity of the incident) to cool off in isolation and learn why they should not repeat such behaviour.

[2] Restorative Engagement: arrangement is to be made for the abusive individual to meet with the person(s) they behaved abusively towards in the presence of trained facilitators, to understand the hurt they inflicted, experience remorse, and express how they will not behave abusively in the future.

[3] Community Reparation: requirement is to be placed on those who have done significant damage (in mental, physical, financial terms) to carry out reparation duties – which are to be determined by those in the community who have been negatively affected, and could involve doing some of the work at a basic level in the organisations concerned (shops, hospitals, building sites, etc.), or serving the wider community (providing assistance to enquirers, cleaning, planting, etc).

[4] Preventative Safeguards: restrictions are to be imposed on those who show no remorse and continue to pose a threat to others, with electronic tags or as a last resort physical confinement, so that they cannot approach individuals or places to cause problems. Anger management and reparation duties are also to be part of the detention regime.

The system outlined will need to be adapted to different organisations, backed by statutory support and subject to independent monitoring to ensure its enforcement does not lead to its own forms of abuse. There is no question that we have reached a point where such an approach is necessary. The repetitive stating of “abuse will not be tolerated” achieves nothing. To stop the pandemic of abuse, corrective action has to be taken.

--

For more information on abusive behaviour:

On retail workers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c79ljgx0el8o

On NHS staff: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jan/10/nhs-staff-face-national-emergency-as-patient-violence-hits-285-incidents-a-day

On council workers: https://www.themj.co.uk/councils-report-sickening-attacks-staff ; https://www.localgov.co.uk/Council-workers-have-started-to-normalise-abuse-from-residents/63607

In schools: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjpx7rnredo

Riots: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/may/26/one-in-five-people-arrested-over-2024-riots-have-since-been-reported-for-domestic-abuse

NHS v Insurance BS

Why do Farage and other Right-wing politicians keep attacking the NHS, suggesting that we should move to an insurance-based system? The reason is simple – the NHS provides health security for everyone, and undermining it would not only make most people extremely vulnerable in the face of corporate whims, but enable profiteers to make billions at the expense of people worried about their health.

But many people in the UK, especially among the young, have forgotten how the underfunding of the NHS that went on during Conservative-led governments from 2010 to 2024, has severely weakened our health services, and led to growing complaints about its shortcomings. The devious mantra is now “you can’t keep throwing money at it”, with the insinuation that something like the US insurance system should take its place.

In order to save the NHS, we must let as many people as possible know what a shift to an insurance system such as the one in the US would mean for us. To begin with, instead of having a free to access health service funded by taxes paid according to citizens’ wealth and income, people would have to try to buy health insurance coverage when the best coverage would be unaffordable for most, while many would not be able to even pay for the most patchy unreliable coverage. In the US, tens of millions of people cannot afford health insurance, and when sick, they cannot even see a doctor.

It is often said the US system is impressive in being the one that spends the most per person on healthcare in the entire world. But in practice, a vast portion of that money goes to treatment for the rich who have the best insurance coverage, and to the profit column of the health insurance companies. Not surprisingly, health outcomes in the US (with lower life expectancy and higher maternal mortality) are worse than comparable countries.

Between the very rich who can sit back and relax, and the poor who have no choice but to suffer in silence, the majority have to set aside money to buy some form of mediocre health insurance. The coverage and claims processing are all designed to minimise what the health insurance companies have to pay out to help people in need. Deductibles, exclusions, copayment clauses, all come into play to leave people without sufficient funds to pay for diagnosis, scan, treatment, medication, or operation.

With claims delayed or even outright denied, people have to go into terrible debt, and some end up bankrupt. According to studies published in the American Journal of Medicine and the American Journal of Public Health, almost two-thirds of all bankruptcy filings in the US were linked to medical expenses or illness-related loss of work. With health insurance often linked to employment, losing one’s job when one is sick is compounded by the loss of one’s health insurance as well.

Unlike the NHS which enables patients to contact doctors and hospitals directly for help, US style insurance system requires people who are not well (and their families) to navigate a highly complex bureaucratic maze to claim insurance coverage to pay to be helped by doctors or treatment in hospitals. It can take a long time, with claims rejected, and substantial medical bills to pay when the necessary funds are not covered by insurance after all.

Under the NHS, any nationally approved medication can be obtained through a subsidised prescription from the GP. With the US approach, pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever they want (and the medical drug costs in the US are among the highest in the world), and it is up to the private insurance companies to decide how much of the cost, if any, they would cover on any given claim.

People may want to moan about the NHS, and Right-wing politicians may do all they can to starve it of the funding it needs, but if we make it abundantly clear to everyone what a deathtrap the profiteering insurance-based alternative would be, we can keep the political focus on strengthening the NHS.

The Old Frayed Citizen Test

In order to become a British citizen, one of the many hurdles to get over is the ‘Life in the UK’ citizenship test. The rationale for requiring applicants to pass such a test is presumably to see if they have a good enough understanding of life in the UK to be a citizen here. But unfortunately the people who set this examination have failed a basic intelligence test themselves.

First of all, what is it about ‘life in the UK’ that one should know in order to live as a citizen in this country? Is it to do with knowing how to use public transport; how to greet people (or not); where to get a good takeaway; how to ignore interminable scam calls on the phone; or when to ask to speak to a councillor (and when to seek help from a counsellor)? It turns out the questioners just want to take people on a whimsical quiz (here are a few delightful examples) - What medal did Mary Peters win in the 1972 Olympics? How many Scottish ski resorts are there? Where was Florence Nightingale born? When did Britain become permanently separated from the continent by the Channel? Which poet was inspired by daffodils and nature?

Secondly, even if there is a case for demanding people share a reasonable degree of common cultural and historical knowledge to be citizens of the same country, that commonality should surely be based on reality rather than the inklings of a wannabe quiz-night question setter. Research has long established that the vast majority of Brits have not a clue what the answers are to most of the questions in the ‘Life in the UK’ test. 66% of us would not pass! So all the test does is to establish that those who pass it do NOT fit in with the British public in general.

Thirdly, instead of concocting some parlour game that tests one’s far-from-general knowledge, any examination that is meant to help ascertain if someone is ready to be a citizen of a country should relate to that person’s understanding of the rights and responsibilities associated with that country’s citizenship. Here are just a few examples: how to report on crime and suspicious behaviour; what constitutes peaceful protest; what are the different roles of MPs and councillors; how to get medical help; how to check the reliability of information sources; what to do about loud noises in the neighbourhood; how to pay taxes, request support, etc.

The compilation of questions and appropriate multiple choice answers is something experts in the field of citizenship education and citizens advice are well prepared to assist. A guide should accordingly be produced to help those applying for citizenship learn about what it would be like to be citizens of the country. Indeed, the guide should be an integral part of citizenship learning for all existing as well as new citizens. From school age on, all members of a country should be supported in developing a practical understanding of the mutual expectations between themselves and others (and statutory institutions).

It is important to remember that this should not be reduced to rote learning of mundane facts (e.g., how many MPs sit in the House of Commons, or who acts as the returning officer for elections to public office). It should focus on what is valuable for citizens to grasp to act responsibly and secure the support they are entitled to. And there should be trained teachers and advisors to help people learn to be effective citizens.

It's time to set aside trivial pursuits, and bring on a meaningful citizenship test.

Gaslight in Your Eyes

Imagine you try to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge, or persuade someone to get real medical help instead of drinking a harmful potion. Suppose you fail. Would you think that since people won’t listen to vital advice, you should just keep quiet from now on? Or would you reflect on how you might do better in future to steer people away from danger?

We have this very challenge at the societal level. Charlatans are out to deceive people into thinking they would be making a terrible mistake if they did not help the trickers win political office. Wearing the Joker’s grin, they invite people to blame and despise innocent scapegoats, reject any measure that can curb the irresponsibility of their financial backers, and hand them the power to do as they please. And people are falling for it.

Mass gaslighting has become an all too familiar phenomenon. “Can’t you see, it’s these immigrants who are causing all the problems”. “Don’t listen to the experts and the do-gooders, we are the ones who can save our country”. “It’s dreadful how our wealth-creators are held back by red tape”. “Anyone calling us racist or sexist is ‘woke’ and must be ignored”. “You want things to get better, you vote for us”. So it goes.

But isn’t their electoral success proof that nothing can be done about it? Look at Trump, look at Farage. Despite a calamitous first term and his attempt to overturn the democratic election of Joe Biden, Trump went on to get enough votes to win a second presidential term. Despite the catastrophic damages caused by Brexit, Farage would go on to secure widespread backing in the latest local elections.

Both deploy classic gaslighting techniques: deny all wrongdoing whatever the evidence; dismiss victims’ accounts of events as ‘fake’; change the subject when questioned about difficult issues or their own inconsistencies; accuse others of being oversensitive; get demonstrably outraged when people would not believe and support them unreservedly; and tell people to stop complaining and just move on.

But should we shrug and move on when we see an arsonist burning down buildings and screaming how that would make everyone better off? That’s what these charlatans want us to accept when their destructive policies and corrupt practices leave immense socio-economic devastation in their wake. Instead of being gaslit into feeling that we should not ‘moan’, we must share the truth widely to stop more of our future going up in flames.

Farage’s Brexit/Reform party promised the freezing and cutting of council tax, but once in power, they put council tax up. What’s more, they cut local services, reduced funding for adult social care and school transportation, scrapped regeneration schemes, and cancelled initiatives needed to protect the environment. And contracts were given to people with highly questionable track record who had donated to the party (https://goodlawproject.org/reform-council-that-promised-cuts-delivers-payday-for-party-backer/).

In addition to all of us doing our bit to expose lies and distortions, we need public figures whose demeanour, sincerity, humour, charm can combine to get through to people who might otherwise fall for the political equivalent of pyramid schemes or ‘discounted’ snake oil.

That’s what we need, honest and persuasive voices, if we are to stop people jumping off the electoral bridge.

And Then There Was Olly

Those of us who spent years in the senior civil service are well aware of the difference between being ‘thrown under the bus’ and ‘hoisted by one’s own petard’. 

Let’s be clear at the outset. The Mandelson saga started with the removal of Karen Pierce, a highly experienced and effective civil servant, from her post as UK ambassador to the US. Dame Karen was well regarded by officials and politicians on all sides (including presidents Trump and Biden) during her five-year tenure. No one has ever explained why the UK government thought it would be better to have her replaced by a political appointee – in this case, Peter Mandelson.

It is often said (by politicians) that career civil servants are too stuck in their ways and not responsive enough to political imperatives. What that usually means is that impartial civil servants take accountability and objectivity too seriously, and only political appointees are likely to serve their leaders unwaveringly.

The problem, when that kind of mantra is repeated ad nauseum, is that some civil servants begin to think that they should behave more like political appointees. If that should happen, it would be difficult to decipher whose ‘judgement’ one can trust.

With Dame Karen pulled from her ambassadorial post, the UK government moved to make Mandelson her replacement. A public announcement was made, but there was still the issue of high level security clearance. 

Enter Sir Olly Robbins. As Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office, he was the most senior civil servant of the department to which Mandelson would report. After Mandelson was arrested in February 2026 on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly passing confidential government information (to Jeffrey Epstein in 2009–2010 while serving previously as Business Secretary), the media claimed that Mandelson was confirmed as the UK ambassador to the US despite his failing to get the required security clearance. 

As fast as lightning, rival politicians queued up to blame Keir Starmer and demanded his resignation. Almost as fast, Starmer said he was never informed of Mandelson failing to get the required security clearance, and sacked Olly Robbins. Then Sir Olly took centre stage and proclaimed Mandelson never failed to get his security clearance.

What?

According to Olly Robbins, there were three important things we should know about this Mandelson security clearance business.

First, he said the Cabinet Office suggested that there was perhaps not even the need to get security clearance for Mandelson as he was a member of the House of Lords, but his team at the Foreign Office insisted security vetting be carried out. The insinuation was that the Cabinet Office, under some steer from the Prime Minister perhaps, tried to avoid having any security vetting of Mandelson done. However, Robbins’ claim was rejected by his counterpart, Cat Little, the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, who told the Foreign Affairs Committee that it was actually the Foreign Office which suggested there might not be any need for security vetting of Mandelson, and it was the Cabinet Office that insisted on having it. (Where is the record of this kind of sensitive exchange, we ask)

Secondly, Olly Robbins was at pains to stress that he was under a lot of pressure to report on the outcome of the security vetting. That might have been to suggest that there was undue pressure from No.10 to ensure Mandelson get security clearance come what may. But all of us who have worked with Ministers and No.10, know very well that it is not unusual for their private office to chase up on progress relentlessly. “Is it done yet?” can be annoyingly repetitive, but there is nothing underhand there. Now if there is any reason why there is a problem with what private office is asking for on behalf of their Minister, the civil servant being pressed should put in writing what the problem is, explain what can be done, and request a formal response from private office. If Robbins was correct in emphasising that he never for one moment felt he was being pressured to do anything other than what he thought was appropriate to do, the ‘pressure’ he mentioned would just likely be the persistent chasing from private office colleagues.

Thirdly, Sir Olly came up with the most curious exposition of how Mandelson got his security clearance. The UKSV team – responsible for carrying out detailed security vetting – could recommend to the employing department one of three options: ‘Clearance Approved’; ‘Clearance Approved with Risk Management’; or ‘Clearance Denied or Withdrawn’. And in the case of Mandelson, UKSV unequivocally recommended to the Foreign Office the third option: ‘Clearance Denied or Withdrawn’. But according to Robbins, in a conversation he had with Ian Collard, Director of Security in the Foreign Office, about the vetting being done by the UKSV team, he was under the impression that UKSV was close to recommending against the granting of clearance (which in fact they did), which led him to decide – without seeing any documentation about the risks UKSV had identified or being aware of any pertinent details which he was in any case not supposed to know – to authorise the granting of Mandelson’s security clearance. (When Ian Collard was asked to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to face questions about his discussion with Olly Robbins, the request was declined).

Olly Robbins maintained he gave Mandelson security clearance not because of any pressure from No.10, but because it was the right thing to do. And he insisted he judged it to be the right thing to do even though he had no access to the detailed findings of the UKSV team which explained why in their expert opinion Mandelson should not be granted security clearance. Yet how could he mitigate security risks about which he claimed to have no detailed knowledge of? And why when news broke that Mandelson failed his UKSV vetting, did he stay quiet instead of informing the Prime Minister that he gave Mandelson security clearance despite him failing the vetting process? Perhaps he was too keen to prove that he did not fit in with Starmer’s caricature of civil servants being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline” – to show he could get things done.

Of course, giving advice Ministers may not like, or producing findings based on facts and not Ministerial preferences (whatever the pressure to the contrary), could all be bad for one’s career. But equally, some Ministers value integrity and impartiality. Members of the UKSV team would appear to possess such qualities. By contrast, those who try to do whatever it takes that they think will gratify their Minsters may end up with the most unpleasant surprise.

The ‘Ever More Drastic’ Swindle

It’s troubling how the ‘Ever More Drastic’ swindle can fool so many people, so easily. In politics, it tricks people into backing the most harmful policies, and has even led some well-meaning elected representatives into making unwise concessions to outrageous demands.

At its core, the swindle is fashioned by charlatans to con others into backing ever worsening ‘schemes’ despite problems evidently surfacing. For example, a con man would ask people to invest in a fund that would deliver double, treble returns. When the results prove disappointing, they double-down with why a further and larger injection of money is necessary to secure the massive returns they repeatedly promise. A corporate fraudster would use a similar ploy to sway shareholders to back a strategy that lines his own pocket but pushes the company towards financial collapse. At every turn, the claim would be that only more substantial funding for the strategy can save the day.

So long as people keep falling for the ‘more drastic action/money/change is needed’ line, and ignoring the evidence, the swindlers get away with it.

Unfortunately, not only is this scam widespread in personal and business dealings, entire countries can be seriously harmed when it becomes a political tool for scammers to gain influence, or even win public office.

For example, we get calls for more deregulation for big business, especially in environmental, financial, and technological sectors, so that they can be free to do what would ‘greatly benefit’ society. When pollution, climate chaos, economic crises, increasing loss of employment, viral spread of disinformation, show how each retreat from protective legislation leads to more dire consequences, we are told that it is all because deregulation has not gone far enough.

Action against immigrants is another area where what is being pushed for is never sufficient. Making our country a hostile destination for immigrants does not go far enough. We should therefore impose ever more stringent entry conditions for those who are actually needed to help our country; keep denying them the right to remain; move on to mass deportation, for illegal, even legal immigrants, or people who are not immigrants at all but just happen to have the ‘wrong’ colour skin. Each step leads to the next because improvement can only be realised when more drastic action is taken.

The Brexit case illustrates this too. Advocates such as Farage started by saying that the UK must leave the EU, but stressed that it would not mean leaving the Single Market. Then they claimed that the UK must not be part of the Single Market. When the UK had ceased to be part of the Single Market, and the severe negative impact on investment, trade, GDP were all widely noted, came the claim that Brexit had not been done thoroughly enough, and more drastic divergence from the EU must be pursued – though that would worsen the negative impact even further. But should that become visible for all to see, it would just be claimed that not enough had yet been done to break cooperation with the EU in every conceivable way.

What these examples show is that politicians who care about their country should not be defensive or give in to the scammers’ demands. Conceding grounds to swindlers’ pitch for ill-considered, harmful, counter-productive policies will not help anyone but the self-serving few who profit from damaging others’ lives. 

Put the spotlight on the con merchants. Question their lies. Expose the con.