It's All About Quality

The Confabulation of Business Interests, whose more honourable members have done so much to ameliorate the economic crisis and avert a double-dip recession, has been researching the virtues of privatisation. Surprisingly enough, the conclusion is that the Government could save money by opening up such commodities as social housing, school meals and prisons to corporate takeover. Naturally, the private sector would not want a race to the bottom on price; the prices of railway tickets and the continuing rounds of profitable increases by the energy cartel certainly seem to bear this out. Nor would the private sector benefit from simply cutting services: wages, pension schemes and the other platinum-plated perks enjoyed by prison officers and school dinner-ladies would have to be slashed first. The twenty-two thousand million pounds thus saved would then be available for maintaining the aforementioned services should the companies involved turn out to be as competent as G4S, as honest as Serco and as concerned for public welfare as Southern Cross.