I know that you're a shade younger than myself but surely your experience has taught you that this is not news but a fact of life. Since time immemorial those with power and wealth have done everything to protect their status.
The plebian masses have been hoodwinked, lied to, imprisoned, tortured and killed so that their masters could continue their privileged ways.
Sadly, those whose power lies in their weight of numbers are easily sidetracked even up to more recent times.
I can recall the expensive publicity campaigns for privatization since 1979 and the potential savings that would have accrued to our government if they still owned everything from BP to Eurostar instead of the assets and income being enjoyed by the French/German/other governments, Canadian Teachers Pension Fund, Foreign Banks and so on. I won't dare mention 'water' or the potential income streams we could have had with so many other businesses that were squandered away.
With good, honest thought and a genuine desire to develop British enterprise past governments could have followed some of the steps taken by Germany, France, Sweden and more recently Poland in protecting and developing their great industries or better still they could have had a grand plan like China which will shortly dominate trade as the British Empire did centuries ago.