The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that we

The core argument - that the state is getting in the way of the private sector fixing everything - is clearly false, at least in the case of the UK. If that were the case, public transport (which underwent radical privatisation and deregulation across the UK some 40+ years ago), would be the cheapest and most effective in Europe. In fact, it's the most expensive in Europe. It is all currently being wrestled back into public hands through bus and rail fixed franchises, because Stagecoach (they own Greyhound in the US, you might be familiar with their work), have driven public transport into the ground in the name of profits for themselves. On housing, the Thatcher government in the 1980s gave social housing tenants the right to buy homes, and created laws that prevented local authorities from building new public sector housing projects: the market, after all, would be more effective. That's led to a situation where private developers own land they won't build on until prices rise - they're artificially shortening supply. The houses they do build are small and expensive, and most people actively look for non-new build homes, to the extent that the government had to introduce tax breaks (Lifetime ISA), and incentives (help to buy), for people to buy new builds they didn't really want. This isn't breaking news. People have been pointing out the problems and obvious drawbacks to the libertarian "private corporations can fix it all" nonsense that drove Thatcherism from the first moments it was conceived in the 1980s, and were hand-waved away as relics of the past by the centre right who took control of the country and destroyed it. Yes, the public sector has problems too. Nobody is arguing that the right solution is to nationalise everything (except in the case of monopoly markets like public transport and utilities, where the UK is markedly behind the rest of Europe in the sectors which it has left to private sector utilisation). It's about balance. It always was, for many years, and for many years it was successful, as it has continued to be across Europe. TFA suggests that the real problem is that the private sector has been leashed by red tape, but that's just not true. The government has given the private sector ample opportunity: to build houses, and they've refused to do so; to build nuclear power, and they keep coming back and asking for more money to fix problems of their own making; to run utilities as they wish, and they pollute rivers and raise bill prices. In most of Europe (with almost identical regulations and rules, thanks to the power of EU frameworks the UK was entirely aligned to until very recently), the public sector has been able to retain a larger part of these critical economic components, and these problems have not arisen to the same extent. As an aside, it's not lost on most that it is ironic that the French public sector is allowed to invest in UK transport and energy sector companies, but the UK public sector is not, due to EU law that we're still trying to get rid of. TFA is therefore philosophically, intellectually and factually flawed at every level based on the actual data and lived experiences of the people suffering this - and yes, I am one of those people. I'm sick of this utterly absurd libertarian agenda being pushed like this, claiming that the private sector is somehow a victim. I believe so are most UK citizens who see it for the propaganda it is. There is an increasing, and deepening sense of unease at private capital in the UK, much of it unfounded. Right-wing libertarian agitprop nonsense like this article doesn't help: it's toxic, and harms the private sector in those areas where it can make a real difference.