Restlessness is evil (or Further comparisons between Singapore and Britain

Besides the Singapore Parliamentary system modelling on the Westminster system, my restless mind that refuses to stop activity after being conditioned throughout the work week to go into "hyperdrive" (my brain's topspeed is a measly 50kmh, idling speed is a stroll at 5kmh) continued to ponder....

And it was rather amazing....

Public Sector
Both countries have been pursuing some sort of Public|Private Hybrid Partnership system for Public Sectors. Started by Margaret Thatcher in early 1980s and Singapore started later but now the Public Utilities Board, Port of Singapore Authority and Singapore Telecommunications are amongst a number of such hybrids.

Workers, Welfare and Employment
Britain started to move away from the welfare to workfare system loosely copying the welfare to work partnership in the US before the turn of the millennia. Singapore's Manpower Ministry recently announced a certain Workfare Bonus Scheme that is similar in many ways to being some form of handouts but Singapore will NEVER fall into the being labelled a welfare stste.

Healthcare, Defence and Education
In Britain's move towards privatising public sectors, the leaders were careful in nomenclature. So nobody admitted any intention to privatise sacrosanct sectors like health, defence and education..... But private entities have got their fingerprints all over each sector. Ask any Briton how they feel about their National health Service (NHS). Similarly for Singapore....in health we've got all the Parkway Holdings etc etc...In the business of defence we've got ST companies and NTUC Foodfare, Singapore Food Industries and a myriad of bus companies supporting the defence industry in some ways be it to train, feed or move us.....and as for education...just read the Education Minister's profile. He seems to be more capable as an entrepreneur rather than educator. But he's not he initiator but certainly a catalyst. Besides independent schools, through-train systems, private universities....we're just gonna move on...education is a money spinner that can have tremendous multiplier effects and potential spinoffs.

Privatising natural monopolies
None of the people I've spoken too can see how the British Railway can be more competitive when the country's railway industry was privatise. There is only ONE railway running down from York to London. So how in the world can different rail companies compete? This is similar to SMRT and SBS Transit. How can the NEL compete with MRT? There is only a single set of tracks. Where is the competition going to come from? Would it be more efficient if government's intent was to keep public transport prices low to have a single company running the entire system then enforcing a price and the company gets to keep whatever profits that can be made by keeping their operating cost down without compromising safety and reliability?

Picking Winners
The British government was very much into the whole knowledge-based economy in the late 90s and were interested in developing sectors that were deemed more likely to be economic growth enhancing. Singapore was also choosing industries to capitalise on. It used to be life sciences until Philip Yeo told everyone that graduates can be nominal research assistants and polytechnic graduates can be laboratory assistants. Now we're into water-resource management and the whole desalination and reverse-osmosis thing, developing Singapore into a hub for digital entertainment be it by George Lucas, or some LAN gaming, computer games development....The problem with picking winners is that it is essentially a gamble in which you hope your payoff soutweigh your losses. And late developers get killed before they can be established.

Monarchy
Britain's got the Windsors (changed from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha during World War 1 to hide their Germanic ancestary) while we've got the Lees

Is this evidence of remnant colonialism or some neocolonialism? Narh.....my brain should hibernate soon. It's the weekend!