>does not create incentives to improve efficiency and service.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess you've never used the for-profit rail services of the UK then.

(I know this is quite snarky, but to elaborate, there is no incentive for the TOCs, because a operating a stretch of railway line doesn't have any competition. You don't need to be efficient or give good service because customers do not have an alternative choice of train they can use.)

Having an incentive to make profit doesn’t create incentives to improve efficiency and service. A private companies incentives are the profits, and anything else is just in order to serve those.

Yes, they do, campaigning on a program of better services and then not delivering anything is very much against career politicians' interests.

This was part of the reason why a lot of previously nationalised stuff was privatised in the first place. MP's would get people complaining to them about the quality of their phone lines from BT for example.

It all moves in cycles, I could well imagine the same situation happening again in 20 years.

The timeframe for changes is so long that this has zero chances of affecting any politician's career

Yes, but they're still judged for their actions, so they'll lose voters if they do nothing or take actions that will be widely criticised by the press.