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Does ownership matter? When it comes to social reform, does it matter who owns what? We have a negative example in the New Labour governments.
Tony Blair abolished Clause IV because he said public ownership did not matter for social reform.
New Labour governments did increase social spending, but not by public ownership. They thought “market methods,” contracts, targets, inspections and league tables would work better. The results prove they were wrong.
Private companies running social spending became Atos running welfare and firms like Carillion running PFI. A new think tank, Common Wealth (find them at common-wealth.co.uk ) are heading in the opposite direction. They are trying to discuss and design new, democratic forms of public ownership. Their work could be crucial to a future Labour government, so I strongly suggest checking them out.
