James Meek, 2014. ‘Private Island: Why Britain Belongs to Someone Else’, London: Verso.
Perhaps better known for his fiction, James Meek brings to together a collection of essays, first published in the London Review of Books, on the Privatisation of Britain. With each chapter covering a different industry, Meek eloquently traces the logics and processes that have lead to the selling-off of public services in the UK. Having travelled to Russia during the final years of the USSR, Meek witnessed the privatisation of, what was, the largest state-owned planned economy, finding many commonalities between then and the state of Britain today. The final chapter of the book addresses the collapse of municipal housing in the UK, from the policy of Right to Buy, to the stock transfer of council housing to Housing Associations, noting the impact this has had on affordable housing provision in the UK. |