Minor point: however much the Rabid Right bang on about privatising everything (when they mean *pirate*ising, but that's a separate rant), having nationalised industries actually *benefits* them on average. This is based on the observation that there's only one thing a trade-union official hates more than the management, and that's an official of a rival trade union.

Consider:

Suppose the country has five nationalised industries (for suitably general values of five).

Year 1: the nurses (say) get a pay rise above the national average *for that year*. The Govt says to the train drivers etc: We can't afford to give you a pay rise this year because *nurses* .... and inter-union rivalry does the rest.

Year 2: it's the train drivers' turn to get an above-average pay rise ....

At the end of Year 5, all five industries have had one-off pay rises, each of which has been portrayed at the time as inflation-bustingly exorbitant generous, and all of which average out over five years as somewhat less than five yearsworth of inflation.

This of course all breaks down, as we are seeing now in the UK, if there's an extended imposition of austerity: none of the industries in question get a pay rise for long enough that union members' dislike of the Govt overcomes their distaste of other unions.

Let there be flames.