"Thatcherism" does, however. It is a warped [Ayn] Randian view of capitalism and those who drive it. State intervention into the machinery of capital, even when it comes to essential infrastructure, is considered a corrupting influence.
Nobody able to change national policy within Downing Street or even ministries in Whitehall, at the time - or since - has had the gumption to say it's not working and we need to do something about it.
You are however right, that NIMBYism has also worked remarkably well - the planning process in the UK is the reason we can't build HS2 cheaply or quickly, and that is relatively painless compared to wind farms, solar farms (also often blocked), never mind building a dam and flooding an entire valley, which was the old way of creating new capacity.
https://www.ft.com/content/1057f722-75d5-11e1-9dce-00144feab...
A lot of NHS privatisation was done by Blair and Brown - especially to facilitate Brown's use of off-balance sheet debt to fund spending while pretending the government was not increasing national debt.
A lot of privatisations were a good idea. I think most people would agree the government should not own oil companies, airlines, car manufacturers, steel manufacturers, or telecoms, etc. I think the mistakes need to be seen against the backdrop of a necessary correction of a lot of nationalisation.
The problem has also been regulatory. Why were water companies not required to build capacity? Why were they allowed to borrow in order to pay shareholders? This was all entirely foreseeable.
I think the problem is not an ideology, but the lack of a coherent ideology. Privatisation has become an end in itself, backed by politicians who do not seem to understand that its not a magic bullets, and there is no incentive for efficiency in the absence of competition. A private monopoly is usually worse than a state monopoly unless very closely regulated.
People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically, if not run by the government outright, given the current geopolitical situation. Let's talk straight: if China and India would close down export for steel, or if OPEC decides to repeat the 70s... the Western world is fucked. And yes, that includes America, because most US refineries need OPEC oil for chemical composition reasons. The US is only net positive on oil imports and exports, it is by far not self sufficient. Add in a major war, we'd not be able to produce ammo, much less vehicles, even if we somehow found enough staff to man the plants.
As for telecoms: the base infrastructure should belong to the government. That is a lesson we in Germany are learning at the moment...
I think you got that backwards, Venezuela needs US refineries because of chemical composition reasons. North America as a whole is self-sufficient.
> People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically
Oh good, lets push the inflation button even harder. I can only hope steel manufacture can someday be as efficient and competitive as US boat building.
Nationalised water in Scotland is no better than privatised in England and Wales, and has a higher rate of sewer leaks: https://theferret.scot/scotland-behind-england-sewage-leaks/
But if private companies are taking the equity out of the service via profit, then why should the government spend public money to build new infrastructure to support them?
Thatcher's been dead for 12 years and out of power for 35, so I'm not sure why it should take much gumption. All it needs is national leaders who believe in the flourishing of the country, and that that requires infrastructure development, not just banks, software and scientific research. Unfortunately I don't see any such leader on the horizon.
Reagan, Thatcher, all the same, and their ideology kept alive by neoliberals (basically every politician that isn't an out and out socialist or snidely toeing fascism) and the Chicago school of economics.
Find me a national leader that believing in the flourishing of the country (and all the people in it) and I'll find you an entire political apparatus in opposition to that in favor of the flourishing of Capital.
