Mrs Thatcher and her legacy: The regulation of telecommunications markets

Ewan Sutherland

33rd European Regional ITS Conference, Edinburgh, 2025: Digital innovation and transformation in uncertain times from International Telecommunications Society (ITS)

Abstract: The 1979 Conservative Party manifesto omitted denationalisation. By 1983 the manifesto had the privatisation of BT as a central plank, but not sector regulation or corporate lobbying and litigation. Cable & Wireless, had already been sold, reversing the nationalisation of 1946 and echoing the privatisations of 1928 and 1938. It was dwarfed by the three tranches of BT shares, which helped popularise shareholding in the short term for the better off . Margaret Thatcher claimed privatisation was the "British cure". Yet where monopoly persisted or was turning slowly to oligopoly, it required a complex regulatory state to substitute for competition. Managing competition and the creative destruction of technological change had driven Derby and Disraeli to incorporate telegraphy into the state, and Baldwin to privatise parts of the Post Office. However, it was Thatcher who opened the way to the complexity of the regulatory state, with ever more QUANGOs. Since 2016, the UK has had four Conservative prime ministers, who inter alia have promised fibre and 5G to every home, but who faced a complex system of regulatory governance offering few easy interventions. They encouraged private equity investments in fibre, negotiated extended geographic coverage with mobile operators, and forced property owners to rent space for network equipment. Spurred on by the US, they banned Chinese equipment for national security reasons. The National Farmers' Union (NFU) had questioned Thatcher about the willingness of a commercial BT to provide service in rural areas, an issue that persists today, only partly resolved by state aid. Privatisation diffused into developed and developing economies. Yet it was never adopted alone, but only as part of a package with financialisation, liberalisation and regulation, while companies responded by developing skills in lobbying and litigation. The number of QUANGOs grows, despite occasional threats of bonfires.

Keywords: Financialisation; Privatisation; Regulatory Governance; Telecommunications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-reg
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