Guardian: £1 in every £11 of UK public contracting goes to private equity
Treating children like cattle’: what happens when private equity takes over a UK care home? Homes with inadequate staff, management. “High levels of distress” among the children resulted in self-harm, children not safe, poor care All in pursuit of profits. Successive govts privatised care homes.
Has there been ANY industry which has been improved by privatisation? Genuine question as I can’t think of one
People like Farage and Badenoch talk about socialism and ‘leftism’ threatening our country, but the real threat comes from the money men - and particularly private equity. They’re the ones who will do nothing to improve people’s lives - just make them worse by hollowing out everything they touch.
Not for profits has to be the way forward, definitely not private for profit because the children become a commodity in that model.
When an organisation's only function is to make as much money as possible, it will focus all of it's energy on doing only that.
We have got to stop our services from being just part of an investment fund portfolio. Corporates out of our care homes.
Private Equity should carry a government health warning not a supportive tax policy.
Being part of Richie’s journey and since his book release, we’ve met several private care home owners. Some are brilliant and some are clearly only in it for the money. One woman we know lives an extravagant lifestyle with expensive cars and designer clothes etc. We ultimately broke ties with her
Jeg fatter ikke, vi stadig kan have nogen som helst samtale om privatisering som effektivisering, når udfaldet altid er ulykke og livstraumer.
Every £ taken in profit is a £ that could be spent improving the lives of those children.😢
and of course huge negative externalities in terms of children with problems growing up into troubled adults that society has to deal with...
Public procurement is pretty much a racket, a continuing series. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
To an (admittedly cynical) outsider this just looks like one big ideologically organised wealth transfer, an asset stripping of the state, a monetising of things that should never be monetised (like children's misery). We pay more, get less and we all end up poorer on many different levels.
Public policy around tax and regulation makes it more attractive to be PE backed than listed if you are operating in the UK or EU. So more public money ends up in PE houses. Though it’s not clear from the article whether it’s preferable for the money to go to listed groups who also seek profits.
3 options: 1. Fine. 2. Govt incompetent at buying, so motivated sellers choose them as (super profitable) customer. 3. Govt corrupt, and handing favours more to PE than listed or family owned (not clear why) I lean towards 1 and 2.
Given the government wants to increase procurement with small and medium companies, how does it expect those companies to raise capital if they're too small for the stock market?