All three party manifestos favour handing more power to the public.   But underneath the populist rhetoric there’s a very different story of their real intentions.   Labour retains the public sector model, but links it with a federated framework for schools and police forces and a hint of interventionism in industry.    The Lib Dems (or the Dim Libs as my secretary calls them in Oldham) combine people power with tax reform and redistribution.   The Tories however have a very different agenda once you look at the small print.

On the surface it’s all bright and breezy talk of people taking collective control of schools, libraries and parks, electing police chiefs and setting up workers’ co-ops in the public sector.   But just think for a moment, who’s going to run them?   The great majority of parents and citizens have neither the time, expertise or commitment to take on major tasks of this kind.   But the populist langauage is a perfect cover for gradual corporatist takeover even of those inner areas of the welfare state that have so far resisted their blandishments.

Michael Gove, the Tory education spokesman, has really let the cat out of the bag.   His model is the US and Swedish-style ‘free schools’  supposedly set up by parents but in practice nearly always managed by private companies.  And the Tories have also made clear they’ll launch a major extension of academy schools, most of which are sponsored and controlled by private companies which get a return on their capital by making sure they themselves supply the equipment and services that the schools need.   Of course they will not be designated as private for-profit, but as ‘independent providers’.

The same will be true of the worker co-ops a la tory to be created in the public sector.   If workers lack the managerial expertise or the big infusions of capital, private companies will be there to help them – and gradually take control of them.    And private companies’ first responsibility is to their shareholders, not to the public enterprise or its workers.

The truth is, this is not about a Tory Hugo Chavez-style power to the people, but about  profit seeping its way into areas that the private sector normally cannot reach.   Parents and citizens will not be the new bosses, but once more the passive customers of what the private market chooses to offer to its own advantage.

So to the Tory promise of full privatisation of Royal Mail and “an increased role for the private sector” following NHS cuts is now added a new more surreptitious wave of privatisation of public services, even though all the record of the last three decades exposes the outcome as more expensive, less accountability, increased bureaucracy, worse pay and terms and conditions, and a corrosion of the public service ethos and values.

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