If a government wanted to re-nationalise a utilty I dont see why it need not cost them a penny, they can make whatever "rules" they want, an obvious example is the pension age, when I started work it was 65, now it's not, is anyone taking the government to court over this change, no, so I dont see the shareholders of what are private utilities standing a chance of compensation should the government decide to re-nationalise. It always struck me as strange that something that was already owned by the public (in the form of a nationalised industry) could be sold to the public by the government.
Anyway, having lived and worked through the 70/80/90 etc - from my perspective/memory I can tell you the power strikes (miners and power station workers) where we had 3 days of electricity by which to work, dustmen on strike, car workers on strike etc were awful. I was fortunate I was working for a North Sea Oil engineering/design company and we were doing a 6 day working week, 3 on non North Sea and 3 on North Sea, the company did well out of it, I was a trainee, so not quite so well. we even had petrol ration coupons issued, although never used, that's how precarious our energy supplies were.
That period was awful for ordinary non-union, or small non-powerful union workers. Our salaries were eaten by inflation etc and it was no wonder when Thatcher was elected, the vast majority of people were fed up with the powerful unions trying to run the country, they were elected to run their unions, not the country, we had general elections of political parties for that. Unfortunately she went too far and we ended up with wiped out unions and we (the workers) continue to suffer because of it as we have little or no power at work now. I firmly believe in workers having rights, especially the right to strike, and perhaps a say in how a company is run and how profits are "spent".
Trains - best they ever were on my line was just before they were sold off.
(still no where near Thatcher)
