My piece on Conservative Home about Labour's fantasy broadband plans
Of all the fantasy ideas and "free unicorns" being proposed at this election, in my opinion the biggest unicorn of the lot is Labour’s preposterous and potentially disastrous proposal for the industry I have worked in for more than 30 years.
The party’s promise of free broadband for everyone would be extremely difficult to deliver and the attempt to deliver it would probably be found contrary to both to WTO rules and to EU ones – the latter would still be relevant if, under a Labour Government, Brexit did not take place.
It would cost far more than they suggest and would devastate the industry.
Let me “declare an interest”: I am employed by Openreach, the part of BT which Labour propose to nationalise, I own shares in BT, and I am a member of the BT pension scheme.
However, the views I express both here and on Conservative Home are entirely my own and not necessarily those of BT or Openreach.
I have written a piece for Conservative Home about Labour's proposals, which you can read here.
The party’s promise of free broadband for everyone would be extremely difficult to deliver and the attempt to deliver it would probably be found contrary to both to WTO rules and to EU ones – the latter would still be relevant if, under a Labour Government, Brexit did not take place.
It would cost far more than they suggest and would devastate the industry.
Let me “declare an interest”: I am employed by Openreach, the part of BT which Labour propose to nationalise, I own shares in BT, and I am a member of the BT pension scheme.
However, the views I express both here and on Conservative Home are entirely my own and not necessarily those of BT or Openreach.
I have written a piece for Conservative Home about Labour's proposals, which you can read here.
Comments
Anyway, if the Glorious Margaret Thatcher hadn't thwarted BT's delivery of a full fibre network in the 1990's we wouldn't be in the slow lane we are in today.
The much larger sum Labour are proposing to spend - and what it would actually cost them is almost certainly a lot more than they think - would not end up being spent on extending the network
That's because all the money would be used up
- taking Openreach into public ownership for ideological reasons,
- on the huge subsidies which would be needed to offer free Broadband,
- and on picking up the pieces of BT's competitors who would be driven out of the market when the nationalised "British Broadband" made their business model untenable by offering the service free.
Oh, and this is one of many subjects on which you should not believe everything which Margaret Thatcher's detractors say about her.
I have enormous respect for Professor Peter Cochrane, but the simplified account of what happened in 1990 which has been attributed to him in certain publications is not and could not possibly be the whole story.
Insofar as it is correct, however, it is an argument AGAINST giving governments more power over the Telecommunications industry and therefore against nationalisation and Labour's current proposals, not in favour of them.
I have not found any indication that Peter Cochrane has made a comment about Labour's plans for the Telecommunications industry.
If he does I will bet you that his opinion of them is unlikely to be significantly more favourable than mine.