I remember back in the day being advised to apply for a few hundred pounds of British Gas shares and then British Telecomm shares. I think it was Sid who provided the initial advice, I duly obtained them and sold them just as fast - making a small profit. Then came other privatisations - water, trains, etc. I felt that there was a marked difference between the first two and the rest. These others seemed like part of the national infrastructure rather than just one operator amongst many. It also seemed that the carving up of old monopolies would be difficult to achieve without some problems. Lastly, I heard the politicians proclaim that private ownership would unleash a wave of investment and it would be all be so much better - and I knew for sure then that this was profiteering, lies and doomed. Well some made a lot of money from it. Now it all looks like a drain for everyone and gorging at the profits for a few.
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We were sucked in by British Energy and the huge nuclear selloff. We liked the prospectus and the future looked bright for our considerable investment. Then out of the blue came an offer to buy all that we owned. We refused and before anything could be done, our shares were compulsorily purchased by the government and then passed over to the French EDF (spit) without any appeal route, the bastards!!
Privatisation was supposed to unleash cheaper prices as there was more competition, instead we saw price fixing throughout…