Privatised Nation

It seems to me that it's only a matter of time until the state itself is sold off to the highest bidder. If you think about it, the privatisation of government would solve several issues facing our current state owned politicians. There would be no outcry when it was revealed that MPs were claiming duck islands and landscape gardening on expense accounts, as it wouldn't be taxpayers money anymore. There would be none of the hassle of trying to convince the electorate that political parties cared about the general populace, merely the conglomerate which could offer the lowest price for running the country. 

However, going by our current government's recent form of awarding contracts to run essential services, we'd be as likely to end up with a private cabinet headed by a Francois Hollande Xi JinPing coalition than a homegrown assembly of careerist politicos. As more esteemed writers than I have pointed out, it seems that our government is perfectly happy to have services fulfilled by state owned companies, as long as that state isn't our own. The Chinese and French national companies currently contemplating commencing construction of two nuclear reactors in Hinkley were possibly too busy convincing our cabinet that their proposal offered value for money to appreciate the irony of the situation. 

As George Monbiot stated earlier this week the entire project is doomed to be outdated, expensive and practically obsolete before it's even completed. It seems to me that this is pure posturing on behalf of a government which is desperate for a good news story amidst the multiple disasters of education upheavals, Royal Mail sell-offs, ever increasing austerity and rising bills for everything from trains to central heating. Revealing a large project such as this is supposed to do everything that the HS2 railway has also failed to do. Ambitious, potentially beneficial, poorly planned and badly costed, both proposals smell distinctly of coalition desperation, and indicate an embarrassing lack of foresight on behalf of those we have entrusted to run our, currently public sector, state.