Skip to main content
NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
Questions of ownership

Does ownership matter? When it comes to social reform, does it matter who owns what? We have a negative example in the New Labour governments.

Tony Blair abolished Clause IV because he said public ownership did not matter for social reform.

New Labour governments did increase social spending, but not by public ownership. They thought “market methods,” contracts, targets,  inspections and league tables would work better. The results prove they were wrong.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
NHS workers on the picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital,
Features / 26 April 2025
26 April 2025

When privatisation is already so deeply embedded in the NHS, we can’t just blindly argue for ‘more funding’ to solve its problems, explain ESTHER GILES, NICO CSERGO, BRIAN GIBBONS and RATHI GUHADASAN

LOCKED-IN OUTSOURCING: Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood during the official opening of HMP Millsike in Yorkshire, to be run by the notorious outsourcing firm Mitie
Features / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

Despite Labour’s promises to bring things ‘in-house,’ the Justice Secretary has awarded notorious outsourcing outfit Mitie a £329 million contract to run a new prison — despite its track record of abuse and neglect in its migrant facilities, reports SOLOMON HUGHES

Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Behind Starmer’s headline-grabbing abolition of NHS England lies a ruthless drive to centralise control so that cuts of £6.6 billion can be made — even if it means reducing cancer services and clinical staff, writes JOHN LISTER
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT