Wales is for sale

Very little seems to have been made of one part of Darling's financial package announced on Monday. To help finance some of the tax and borrow plans the government is considering a new tranche of privatisations, three of them which will be of particular importance to Wales.

I suppose that the reason why we have heard so little about these privatisation plans is because the Tories are generally in favour of privatisation, and those that use to complain about the policy in the Labour party are keeping their gobs shut out of loyalty to party rather than loyalty to principal.

One of the few to comment on the story is Dai Hudd, the deputy general secretary of public service union Prospect who made the pertinent point that:

Any attempt to sell them off now would be economic madness. In the current climate the market value of these public assets will be way below their real value. It would be a case of sell in haste, repent at leisure. Government will face the justifiable anger of taxpayers if they see these national assets sold at bargain basement, credit-crunch prices.

The three which are going to have a big effect on Wales are privatisation of the Royal Mint, which is currently in Llantrisant, the DVLA the major employer in the Swansea area and the Forestry commission.

Privatising the Forestry commission is a matter of particular concern. One out of every seven acres of the surface of Wales is owned by the Commission, the idea that Mr Darling could sell 14% of our country to private investors who may have little or no interest in our country is sobering, the thought that one seventh of our country could be owned by a Russian oligarch or a huge multinational with its headquarters half way around the world by this time next year is frightening. The fact that most of our elected politicians seem have ignored this issue is scandalous.

Update
The Daily Pundit has some rumours of potential buyers, apparently Tesco is in the frame for buying the Forestry Commission and Vladimir Putin has his eye on the Royal Mint.