State ownership was inefficient

Leah Gunn Barrett in her letter of 12 March extols the virtue of all public assets being controlled and run by the state.

She writes that it was a post-war Labour government which brought the coal mines, power companies and railways into public ownership as part of a massive public spending programme which included the creation of the NHS.

She goes on to claim that "the economy flourished with full employment and no inflation, enabling the UK to retire its war debt”.

In fact, the UK did not repay its war debt until 29 December 2006, with a final payment of £57.5m to the US and Canada.

Those of us who lived through the post-war years will remember very clearly that the UK was very much the sick man of Europe.

Union power dominated and the state-owned enterprises were massively over staffed, grossly inefficient and the concept of competitive tendering in the public sector simply didn’t exist.

Contracts for new plant and equipment were offered on a supplier rota on a cost plus basis. it wasn’t until Margaret Thatcher confronted the union domination, particularly Arthur Scargill and the NUM, that change was introduced and the foundations were laid which eventually led to the UK becoming the fourth largest economy in the world.

Modern union leaders are far more enlightened but the last vestiges of those times can still be seen in the recent actions of the RMT and ASLEF.

Privatisation isn’t perfect but putting public assets back into state ownership didn’t work before and won’t work again.

Colin Rorison, Howgate

Life in our society has changed over the past decades and the church is changing too