Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies. It is, for sure, better that George Osborne has, for the moment, pulled back from dumping the taxpayers’ shares in Lloyds on to a bearish market, than it would have been for him to plough stubbornly ahead. Before last year’s election the chancellor bragged that the national debt would fall faster than expected, a claim that turned out to depend on selling things like Lloyds, which flatters the books but does nothing at all for the public sector’s balance sheet. So it is a relief to learn, now the election is won, that the desperation for cash upfront can be somewhat tempered by concern about the available price.
But Mr Osborne is merely slowing the pace, not changing course, on a deeply ideological privatisation programme. There has not been the same noise as there was when the Thatcher government urged everybody to Tell Sid about the British Gas prospectus, nor the same buzz as there was when middle Britons who had never previously thought of buying stocks posted off a cheque for BT shares. Quietly, however, Mr Osborne has been breaking records. The Press Association tots up a total of £26bn in asset sales last year– including the state’s Eurostar stake, 30% of the Royal Mail and a slice of Lloyds. This surpasses the previous high of £20bn, set way back in 1987, when Rolls-Royce and British Airways were sold.
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