Let's play a game. I'm going to blindfold you and then hand you a service. You have to tell me whether this service is either run (or at least heavily controlled) by the government. Are you ready? Here's service number one:
Haven't got it yet? Here's some clues. This service is:
- Dirty
- Overcrowded
- Seems to have too many staff hanging around doing nothing useful you can discern
- Pricey
- Is a legal monopoly
- Has numerous ongoing failures, which seem to replicate endlessly day after day
- Adopts a take it or leave it attitude
- Requires endless subsidies, despite endless price rises above the market trend
- Seems to have fanatastically well-paid managers or senior staff (and lots of them)
- All the staff, including the well-paid ones, are chippy, arrogant, and are quite happy to let you know that they really couldn't give a monkeys
- Uses sub-standard equipment or equipment that seems 30 years out of date
- May be brightly coloured, but is often shabby and degraded
- Tinged with an edge of violence and decivilised graffiti
- Is regularly in the papers for being dangerous, but no-one seems to do anything about it
- Hedged around with posters threatening you with police action if you misbehave
- Filled with customers who look angry, bored, dejected, or just plain miserable
Now, is this a government service, or a government-free one (or at least a semi-free one)? Once again, you decide.
I know. It's really difficult, isn't it.
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