I really had hoped that we would be able to avoid talking about peripheral Europe once March's Greek bond payment and orderly default on its debt was out of the way. The focus has of course shifted from Italy to Spain in the past month, as Mariano Rajoy's 100-day honeymoon as Spanish prime minister has come to a rather sudden and painful stop.
In today's free market economy, there has to be a role of government whereby the principles of competition and improved customer delivery, particularly in the public services, are defined and refined for the greater good of society as a whole - and that part-owned private companies can be structured to be liable to perform to this greater good.