Labour’s business spokesman, Chuka Umunna, uttered in January 2014: ‘The big difference between 1979 and 2013 is that we are all capitalists now.’ Is he right? Have the Thatcher and New Labour years changed everyone? And the Guardian ran a poll to see if their readers agreed with him.

In response to Ed Miliband’s conference speech last year, Jonathan Freedland mentioned that he had witnessed “a new and emerging strain of left populism”. For Freedland, “It confirms Miliband’s larger ambition: not merely to win power the Blair/Brown way, within parameters set by Conservatism, but to redraw those lines, to shift the centre ground itself leftward.”

Today, Simon Stevens takes over the rôle from Sir David Nicholson of leading NHS England. It is known that Stevens used to be a SpAd to Frank Dobson MP, a former Labour Secretary of State for the Health. It is alleged that he used to be, at least, a member of the Socialist Health Association. It is clear that there is some sort of crisis on the right about the unpopularity of privatisation, for example this short piece by Ryan Bourne is head of economic research at the Centre for Policy Studies.  Latterly, I’ve felt the public respond very well to emotions-based campaigning rather than cognition-based campaigning. For example, rather than thinking for ages about whether it ‘matters’ whether the NHS is ‘operationally delivered’ by private companies, the general public are more concerned about ‘State assets being sold off’, or even private and public limited companies ‘are able to profit out of your illness’. But there is an overlap: privatised railways can offer poor value for the consumer in a fragmented service, whereas people intuitively like the idea of a nationally-run well-organised State-run transport service.

So it is therefore noteworthy that ex-Employment lawyer, and poster boy for responsible capitalism, is so critical of the Royal Mail sell off. Royal Mail for many epitomises the best aspects of socialism – i.e. it sends as much to send a first class letter to Crewe as it does to Cowes. Companies, thus far, had not been bickering on who is actually going to deliver the letters – who funds for the postman. So Chuka Umunna’s standpoint of criticising the Royal Mail flotation is clearly bound to be anaemic for socialists in comparison. And yet it’s clear that the privatisation of Royal Mail has benefited hardworking hedgies. Vince Cable said it had achieved its primary objective of selling the shares and reducing the risk to taxpayers, but the inherent risk in privatising NHS services, defined as fielding out them to the private sector, is surely greater? Calls for the resignation of Vince Cable, a former socialist, came after the National Audit Office said too much emphasis was put on rushing the sale, at the expense of value for money.  Royal Mail shares are more than 70% higher than the 2013 sale price. Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said it was a “botched, panic sale” and the business secretary “should consider his position”. The anger for many is that Royal Mail had become profitable in the public sector, and now transferring it to the private sector will in reality benefit certain stakeholders predominantly.

As opposed to the NHS ‘sale of the century’, it’s been mooted that new era of public ownership of the railways could save the Treasury more than £1bn a year and deliver improved services and lower rail fares for passengers. England’s fragmented railway system be gradually brought back into public hands as franchises expire or companies break the terms of their franchise agreement. This movement had intensified after the TSSA union argued that Network Rail bosses could earn more than £10m in bonuses over the next three years under a new scheme – as well as RMT figures showing that 65% of Britain’s rail operators are owned by overseas companies, with 60% owned by European state rail arms.  Since privatisation nearly 20 years ago, the cost of train travel has risen by 17% compared to a 7% drop in the cost of motoring, while in recent years the bill for the taxpayer of running the trains has shot up by 2 to 3 times.

The “Great Train Robbery” is said to be a blatant transfer of public money to private interests at the expense of the taxpayer and rail passengers, who are forced to endure the consequences of a deeply complex and fragmented system while ticket prices get bigger and bigger. And going back to the ‘raw emotions’ of it it’s known that Clem Attlee was a hugely popular Labour Prime Minister, and saw the benefits of state ownership. Attlee became prime minister on 26 July 1945 as the leader of a Labour party that had won a landslide general election victory with a majority of 144 seats.  His government was a transformational one. Its strategy of maintaining high levels of employment, with major industries under public ownership, was the governing model in post-war British politics until Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government of 1979–90. And political parties do appear to swop ideologies – take for example George Osborne’s nostalgic return to full employment yesterday. Hot fast emotions are likely to make more impact than cold decision making, as recently discussed in the celebrated book “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman.

Tony Benn MP, much revered in recent days, was very scathing about the term ‘responsible capitalism’ in his final set of diaries, “An autumn blaze of sunshine”. Some call ‘responsible capitalism’ an oxymoron, as ‘responsible’ implies moral accountability while capitalism is driven by self-interest. Others insist that it defines the state’s obligation to balance social justice with individual freedom.  And this is not trivial, as private investors seek to ‘pick winners’ through offering long-term debt finance through ‘social impact bonds’ for social enterprises. In truth, behind a bland phrase lurk there is quite a fierce discussion we mean by “socially responsible.” In Bush’s view, “socially responsible” means that large corporations should provide more jobs, pay better wages, compensate host communities for the burdens of resident corporations, stop polluting, and so on. And there is no doubt right to call these goals and objectives desirable. But Ed Miliband should not set his sights on ‘Being George Bush’ in a crazy form of ‘Stars in your Eyes’. NHS campaigners know that state ownership is ‘box office’ stuff, and a perfect way to win hearts not just minds. We may not be all capitalists now.