Sir – British Gas poached me from Southern Electric a couple of years ago. Now EDF has poached me from British Gas.
I expect Thames Water will soon offer me all three utilities for a temporary saving. So this is the long-term result of Thatcherization: a bunch of predatory oligopolists, snatching each other’s customers for the profit of their shareholders!
It is fake competition, since only one lot of stuff can come through a single pipe or wire. For that matter there can be only one 9 o’clock to Paddington, only one 5.40 bus to Boars Hill and only one local school. And what a waste of time and energy, all those salespeople and accountants!
I would be happy to vote for a Real Labour government that would de-privatize public services. I would be equally content with Tories in the mould of Harold Macmillan, who told Mrs Thatcher not to ‘sell the family silver’. The present system seems like institutional madness.
Philip Stewart, Boars Hill
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