The New Era housing estate is owned in New York; army recruitment is run by Capita (Reports, 18 November). I seem to remember that the army’s theatre equipment servicing is being sold off. I can’t keep track of how much public provision is now delivered by A4E, G4S, Serco etc, and the various shadowy outfits running probation or schools, or receiving lucrative NHS contracts. What I’d like for Christmas is a Guardian booklet identifying everything that used to be a public service or utility, or social housing or care home, that is now a nice little earner for some private company – along with an assessment of how much public money goes into these “providers”, how well they function, how much they donate to the political parties, which MPs or ministers are sponsored by them, or sit on their boards, or are married to their CEOs, and by how much we subsidise their low-paid employees. We need to know who owns Britain, who sold it, and how much it is costing us.
Richard Gravil
Penrith, Cumbria
