Robert Griffiths's look at Britain's history of nationalisation (M Star March 15) provides a timely reminder that the commanding heights of the economy were not surrendered by private interests to the post-war Labour government.
They were bought at a high price then rebuilt and modernised at public cost.
Today, as Rob points out, monopoly capital's control of energy and transport means the problems of energy crisis and global warming appear as intractable as TB and polio were before universal vaccination and the NHS.
But his article fails to mention the critical role of the European Union in driving forward privatisation of state-owned, public services and in making renationalisation illegal and effectively unconstitutional in EU member states.
EU directives covering everything from post offices to ferries have forced public services to "open" to the market while creating an artificial separation between distribution networks and the surveys they supply, benefitting private-sector cherry-picking to the detriment of planned public enterprises.
The latest dictats of the "troika" ordering Greece, Portugal and Ireland to privatise state assets are a smash-and-grab raid by powerful French and German monopolies and banks, but also represent the emasculation of national sovereignty in these countries by removing essential infrastructure from democratic public control.
The 2009 Lisbon Treaty's aim was to make a return to public ownership constitutionally impossible.
My union RMT together with Unite and Aslef in Britain and unions representing ferry, tram, bus and railworkers from Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Hungary will march in Brussels on Wednesday March 28 in protest against the EU privatisation drive.
Our slogan "nationalisation, not privatisation" is echoed by transport workers and users all over Europe who are sick of the EU's neoliberal dogmas and government by corporations.
While our members are defending public-sector pensions with other unions here, RMT will also be taking the fight to the European Commission to remind them that we don't just want a bigger slice of the cake, we want the whole bakery.
Alex Gordon
President, National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT)
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