We have accepted our diminished role in global affairs, even our diminishing role in Europe (despite the Italians seeming to prefer the British view on the EU). Yet we remain inventors and unconventional in our decision making. However as a nation we're on the cusp of realizing that not only have we been acknowledging our past ex-imperial role but have embraced the rejection of industrial 'public ownership' whilst celebrating our NHS and education system. We have licked our wounds , eaten too much humble pie not to emerge into a new era. We now recognize that the NHS isn't and wasn't in conception about redistribution of access to health care but to promote the values of the 'War Spirit', one of universality for every Britain. The symbolic and literal rescuing of the able-bodied, those on stretchers and the dying from the beaches of Dunkirk is folklore in Britain, must now be seen as the most important contribution from the 'War effort' that will endure for ever. Nationalization of everything in industry must now be seen as a way of short-term protectionism in our economy that had been swallowing-up the fortunes of too many communities up and down Britain for too long. As long as jobs surface (and why wouldn't they?) we have rescued generations of men with no choice but to dig for coal etc, a repetitious and mind numbing job that never ends unless it is shut-down in favour of a larger operation.
Public Ownership
Indeed, 'Public ownership' imposed human limitations and de-individualized potential that remained untapped whilst offering a flimsy piece of paper telling you that you were part of a Nationalized industry without any materialistic difference to the family income. This led to the cycle of having to go on strike by trade unions making demands for more inflated conditions against a government on the fence or antipathetic, which led to governments being restricted and powerless to address the same cycle that afflicted all whether in the Steel, shipbuilding or the Coal industry etc. I'm sure that today Labour would have closed the Pits by now, either on the basis of environmental terms, as well as wanting to promote the econo mies of the former Eastern block workers in front of our own. Or not? You decide .