In Hamlet, the Prince memorably says, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. When looking at the economic mess we are in, I think we can safely say that about how much of big business and finance operates in the UK today.

Corporate life and responsibility – or the lack of it

We have seen, for decades now, a string of scandals which can only undermine our faith in how public and private corporations operate in our country. One of the most egregious examples is that of the, publicly-owned, Post Office, which saw ordinary people go to prison for crimes many in senior management knew they had never committed, in the infamous Horizon scandal. It took years of effort by the victims to clear their names. At the same time, postal services run by the sold-off arm, Royal Mail, have declined since privatisation, with fewer deliveries and sky-rocketing prices: the cost of a first-class letter has risen by more than 100% in the last five years! The HS2 gravy train is another example of mismanagement and even, potentially, some fraud. Something has clearly gone badly wrong if we are paying up to £100bn for a 150-mile stretch of railway.

The mergers and acquisitions system is also broken. Foreign companies are taking over UK businesses and then many are going to the wall. For example, Raleigh bikes, founded in 1887, has just started insolvency proceedings; the Dutch Company Accell bought the company in 2012 and then sold it on to a US private equity company in 2022, since when the business struggled. Private equity also bought the WH Smith chain, now also gone from our high streets. Let’s hope EasyJet fairs better as it has just been taken over by another US company, Apollo, which is reportedly loading it with £3bn in debt.

In the fossil fuels sector, oil company BP has also just reported record profits, despite the foreign wars affecting several oil-producing countries, some concluding it has been cashing in on these crises. And all this despite oil fuelling climate change, which is now costing lives and farmers millions in lost food production. Amazon, another US company – whose growth in delivery services has surely only hastened the demise of the British high street – paid only the equivalent of 7% tax on their UK profits in 2025. Why is this tolerated? And the involvement of private equity companies in providing social care in England – which Andy Burnham has at least said he will stop – has been a stain on our social care system. These companies have made good profits out of the most vulnerable in society – not always delivering a good level of service for it – in some cases quite the reverse.

And what about the provision of public services like water, higher education and the railways? Well, we all know about the water companies pumping sewage into our waterways. Thames Water, which is also largely foreign owned, is now in deep financial trouble, despite which their senior executives received record bonuses of £4 million this year. Again, it is only thanks to tireless campaigners like Feargal Sharkey that the level of pollution of our rivers and seas has been exposed. Brexit was also an open goal for the water industry who no longer faced stiff fines from the European Court of Justice for pollution incidents.

In the education sector, likewise, the tuition fees situation is beyond iniquitous. England has almost the highest tuition fees in Europe (compare £9000+ fees in the UK with very low administration fees in Germany, no fees in Denmark and Scotland and less than £2000 annual fees in France and the Netherlands), all compounded by grotesquely high interest on loan repayments. A limited amount of the early debt was sold off to the private financial sector some years ago which they saw could yield good profits. The Treasury itself is profiting from loan repayments this year drawing anger from the National Union of Students. More broadly in the sector, Prospect magazine reported in January 2026 that “Private finance is strangling British education” which is ”being corroded by the creeping infiltration of global finance at every level.” Sound familiar?

Finally, what about the railways? The previous administration under Keir Starmer promised to renationalise most rail services within five years. Well let’s hope that makes a difference because the i paper reported last year that UK peak time train journeys were more than twice the cost of their EU equivalents. Consumers who have to travel at peak times and who cannot book far ahead, are being punished.

These diverse situations may not seem linked, but, of course, they are – it’s about the neoliberalism model, which we are seeing operate in extremis in the UK, especially since Brexit. Institutions and consumers are being fleeced, time and time again, by business interests, who are putting profit ahead of the needs and wellbeing of customers and service users, meaning increasingly unaffordable – and sometimes difficult – lives for most of us.

Can the Liberal Democrats put forward policies which will start to tackle, at scale, the corporate business practices which are bleeding our economy dry?

* Judy Abel is a Lib Dem member who has worked in health policy for several major health charities. (She is still working)