The Panama Papers and Privatisation

My new Public Ownership column for the Morning Star- on the link between the Panama Papers and privatisation.

IT ALL began in 1979. That was the year when privatisation was launched in Britain (back then it was called “denationalisation”) and exchange controls were lifted.
On October 23, Thatcher’s chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe stood up in Parliament and announced the abolition of all existing exchange controls — except those applying to Zimbabwe.
The controls which Howe was abolishing had existed for 40 years — and, like public ownership, were an integral part of the social democratic economic system which existed after WWII. But for the Thatcherites they were an unwelcome restriction which prevented the rich from becoming even richer.

You can read the whole column here