UK News 11-09-2001 Blair Policy "Quacks Like A Duck" who: Tony Blair what: Says he is not trying to privatise public services where: BRIGHTON when: Today snippet: "I believe strongly in the public service ethos," says Tony Blair in an interview with The Guardian today ahead of his speech to a hostile crowd at the Trades Union Congress conference in Brighton today. "That is why I am trying to reform and deliver better public services, not privatise them." Mr Blair promises that what he calls public/private partnership "certainly shouldn`t be at the expense of the terms and conditions of employment of the staff" and insists that although some private sector fims might be trying to exploit the NHS, "the most sensible" of them "will look at the opportunites there and - if they can provide a better service - they`ll have a go." But in The Times, Sir Ken Jackson - general secretary of the AEEU and a loyal Labour ally - warns Mr Blair that he has lost touch with his left wing supporters. "We keep telling [ministers] that people are worried about their jobs," he says, "but there is no sense of urgency." And in The Telegraph, GMB union boss John Edmonds dismisses the idea that private sector funding is innately different to privatisation. "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it`s a duck," he says, "and if it`s private companies running public services for profit then it`s privatisation." [... more]

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