Labour: Free broadband for all and nationlise BT

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  • Labour has promised to give every home and business in the UK free full-fibre broadband by 2030, if it wins the general election.

    The party would nationalise part of BT to deliver the policy and introduce a tax on tech giants to help pay for it.

    Why give free broadband to everyone, when most of the country can afford it already? Wouldn't it make more sense to give a decent, free service to those that can't afford it, especially some elderly people?

    As for the nationalisation of BT, it depends on how they go about it. Labour are talking about the Openreach bit that owns all the telegraph poles and ducts and perhaps as this infrastructure was built with public money, it should be in State hands again. The devil is in the detail.

  • Why be owned by the government? As a former hard nosed Labour activist I have grown to realise how destructive socialism is. The Labour Party and Corbyn oppose free speech so for me the offer of a free gift is nothing. The current contractors, who paid billions, will have to be reimbursed for loss of contract.

    The Labour Party must not get control. They will concentrate on minority groups and PC and Hate Speech as a priority... this will ruin our country.

  • It'll make broadband as efficient as the old nationalised industries

    Sadly the modern generation has no experience of how awful they were

    The nearest comparison today would be the communist countries

  • Why be owned by the government

    A couple of reasons:

    It's a asset and one built with public money, but also there are security implications too (Huawei...) and I would apply the same principle to water supplies too, especially as there is no competition where your water comes from.

    It'll make broadband as efficient as the old nationalised industries

    Sadly the modern generation has no experience of how awful they were

    The nearest comparison today would be the communist countries

    The government shouldn't operate telco services, but the government should own the telegraph poles and ducts and allow private companies to use them, at a cost, of course.

    With a state run internet the temptation to snoop on the proles every use would be irresistible. Big brother on steroids.

    That happens now and has done for a long time.

    We've spoken about this in the past, but its part of the Five Eyes agreement that the Americans spy on us using things like BT and we do the same for them in their country.

  • "The government shouldn't operate telco services, but the government should own the telegraph poles and ducts and allow private companies to use them, at a cost, of course."

    That is why the current railway set up is in such a mess

    And with telephone lines, BT own them all so if you have another service provider and there is a dispute one side will blame the other

  • "The government shouldn't operate telco services, but the government should own the telegraph poles and ducts and allow private companies to use them, at a cost, of course."

    That is why the current railway set up is in such a mess

    And with telephone lines, BT own them all so if you have another service provider and there is a dispute one side will blame the other

    The current railway set up is nationalised to a large extent.

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