After years of massive boss salaries, consultants, champagne and lovely fat shareholder dividends, problems have arisen in the no-competitors closed shop world of big business water. The public are moaning about all the sewage getting tipped in the rivers and seas. The lack of modernisation and investment. So they've been along to the water works and kicked a few rusty old pipes mournfully and declared that the problem you've got here is that it's not been looked after properly. Not been maintained y'see. It'll all have to come out and get replaced. So unfortunately the bills will have to go up by 40%. Except for Thames Water. They've decided to bail. The seam is worked out. The days of easy profiteering are gone. So over to you public. You can have it back. And the £14 billion of debt and repair costs etc. You can have that too. Smell you later! And if you see that twwat Sid, tell him won't you? Privatisation always was a robbery.
It’s the most flagrant rip off of consumers. Privatisation does this time and again, privatise the profits, nationalise the losses. If people don’t get from this how parasitic the Ruling Class is, they never will.
Transferring ownership of essential services from 30 million (?) taxpayers to a few thousand shareholders to raise a relatively small amount of money (given the billions pouring into the Government's coffers from North Sea oil revenue at that time) never made sense. And as water companies do not have any competition privatising the regional water authorities was always particularly daft. By the way 'Sid' promoted the sale of British Gas - not water
It's abominable. All the monies that have been lining shareholders pockets, shady investment banks and hedge funds like Macquarie should have been spent on infrastructure. Then we would not need to see any bill rises. Or sewage pouring into the sea. Once again the consumer is being taken for a ride but most people are so apathetic they'll just moan about it instead of voting for change. The companies that own these water providers are often foreign and they would never get away with this in their own home nation. An absolute disgrace. The same applies to the energy firms and supermarkets. It's nothing more than a cartel supposedly masquerading under the banner of market economics. My backside it is.
He didn’t specify Labour, but it’s a question you could answer yourself with a quick Google. Would Labour do anything differently? Here’s an overview. https://www.times-series.co.uk/news...it-tougher-rules-enforcement-water-companies/ So lots of commitment to improvement and tough enforcement, but not to nationalisation. This is unsurprising as Labour will find the Country doesn’t have a pot to piss in. Spending £bns compensating shareholders won’t be high on the list, but failing companies, like Thames Water, could be fair game. So you may ask, would they improve the situation and the answer has to be ‘could they make it worse?’
That doesn't sound much of an enticement to 'apathetic' voters to 'vote for change', as the post suggested.
On the face of it, not very exciting stuff, I agree, but to be fair to Comrade Moose it's more than the Tories appear to be doing to bring these bloody water companies to heel
What? Making the water companies run competently, in the public interest? You’re a tough old fella to please.
Depends on share value and assets. I’d be happy just to take the thing back, but people in this Country get all wussy about the state simply taking their property. If the debts are so high that the shares are almost worthless, then it can be nationalised. If they are not, there is no point, just regulate the thing very hard with profit caps. But this is how capital usually wins, because then investors won’t invest if the regulation is too strong, profits too low. Then the state has to step in to stop them literally spraying us all with our own shyte. So it has to be that water companies are made to work in the public interest and any investment by the state means compulsory shares for the state, taking it back piecemeal.
What happened to your socialist credentials? But, to go back to the post to which I was originally responding, the point is: people are “apathetic” in large part because there is a lack of big ideas. There’s no “voting for change”, there is just voting for similar, albeit hopefully somewhat better. I don’t think the blame for apathy should necessarily lie with the electorate.
I’ve been very clear, I would like to take it back, with zero ***** given. But that’s not the position a Labour Government can easily take. If they tried to simply abolish the shares, it would go to court and the Government would lose. Most of the shares in the water companies are internationally owned and they won’t simply shrug their shoulders. International capital also has a way, in fact many ways, of punishing defaulting Governments. We could even head into Kwarteng/Truss territory. Estimates are that renationalising would cost around £16bn. And then there are the debts, maybe £50bn. I doubt it would be a priority for a new Government and I can understand that. We would need to build a sovereign wealth fund first. Regulate them into submission is probably the best option. So what would you do Mr Old Leftie?
I’d like Labour to be braver generally, that is the simple point I am making. Is that really that controversial?
It is if you don’t say what and how. I mean of course I want them to be more socialist. You must know that. But art of the possible and all that. If Labour has £60bn odd to spend on something, then there is a long queue as to what, build housing, repair schools and hospitals, deal with cladding etc etc. The problem with the Labour Water policy, which is fine as far as it goes and strict on the companies, is more if they can make it work. Privatised utility companies are slippery ****ers. But if they can’t, then the case for nationalisation becomes stronger in a future Labour term. So braver how?
It’s not my job to come up with Labour Party policy. I was simply querying a suggestion that “apathetic” voters are failing to vote for change because imo there is not much change on offer. You haven’t convinced me that I am wrong, frankly.
Have you read their policy? It’s not like it gets a regular airing unless they are u-turning on it (like in Clive’s recent post). But this isn’t about a vague desire for something a bit more radical. This is a particular policy on water companies we were discussing. You are accusing me of a weak position, without giving another opinion on the options. Comes across as simply argumentative.
No, I was disagreeing with a post which suggested that the fault lies with apathetic voters which seems to me to put the cart before the horse. Voters are apathetic in large part because what is on offer from both parties - across numerous areas, not just here - is relatively uninspiring and not noticeably “change”. You’ve admitted as much yourself in talking about the art of the possible. I fully understand why you see that as a good thing, but it’s unlikely to dislodge apathy.
