Frank Gilfeather: BT’s performance is another example of high price we’ve all had to pay for privatisation

Pleased with BT’s performance and charges?

Hmm. I thought not.

What’s the outcome when one organisation all but has a monopoly on the product it provides?

High prices, poor service and a kind of “take or leave it” attitude towards complaints.

Is this what we expected of BT when Mrs Thatcher, privatised it in 1986?

Well, yes – because very quickly after the shares had been issued, large institutional investors snapped them up and now, rather than concentrating on giving customers what they deserve, BT is spending

£1.2 billion to broadcast European football until 2021.

Now that the company has a 37% grip of the mobile market – and the probability it will bid for more – we can expect it to attempt to gobble-up more rivals, as it did when it paid £12.5 billion buying EE.

A few years ago BT, the principle provider of land-lines, kept me waiting three months until they fixed my faulty one.

So, as someone who would never contemplate paying extortionate sums to access BT broadband, along with satellite football and whatever else it offers on their TV channel, the question must be asked: Why can’t we have competition for the land-line part of their business?

I believe every city and region ought to have its own telecoms system so that all the profits are retained within the community in order to fund public services. Though I accept the capital needed for such a scheme would be prohibitive.

Telecoms for the masses, public transport, postal services and utilities should not be run for the benefit of a handful of shareholders.

Mrs Thatcher, skewed the money-making part of government services in favour of the few … but it’s the people who are still paying the price.

I am always wary of the term ‘the silent majority’

Perception isn’t always accurate.

Until I was 15 I thought all those football players I watched at Dundee’s Dens Park spoke with plummy BBC accents.

A group supporting Aberdeen FC’s bid for a new stadium at Westhill takes the view that they represent “the silent majority” because, as it’s leader says: ”There is a significant number of people for it.”

He may be right, but how many of the “significant number” has he spoken to?

Firm’s rugby promotional material doesn’t match up

A pub and hotel chain’s effort to woo customers to watch TV coverage of this weekend’s RBS Six Nations Championship has dropped the ball.

Apparently, Saturday falls on two days this week and Sunday is on the same day as the second Saturday while France will play twice this weekend; except they won’t.

And no sign of Saturday’s England v Scotland clash?

Had drink been taken by those who compiled, checked (NOT) and printed this nonsense?