Some of you tell me some things like water are too essential to leave to a competitive market. Bread – and food generally – must rank as crucial to life yet I am pleased to say no-one so far has told me food supply needs to be nationalised.
My last two shops for food at two Wokingham national food retailers where I belong to their loyalty schemes tell me just what a good job the competitive markets for food manufacture and retail do. There was great quality and range of choice, and plenty of attention to keeping prices down. They both offered discounts and provided cheaper variants to the great brands for those who want them. The first store gave me a total discount of 30.6% on my bill from a combination of a voucher to get me to shop more and from in store promotions on products. The second store gave me a 20.3% reduction in my bill from similar sources. I was delighted with the choice and quality and thought both shops had worked hard on pricing. Food manufacturers have to battle to keep their places on the shelves, aware that they are being price compared the whole time in the stores. The helpful shelf edge labels often show you the price per unit of liquid or solid to make comparison of value easy when comparing different sized packs and bottle. Customers can keep the food manufacturers honest through the retailer who is on their side when it comes to getting a good deal from the producer.
Compare that with our experiences of government and nationalised industries. I get no discount on my tax bill for honest and timely reporting and paying. There is no choice over which nationalised industries I want to support or over which government follies I have to help pay for. Most of the government bodies you deal with threaten you with penalties and legal action if you do not behave exactly as they demand. They often conspire to make life as complex and uncomfortable as possible as you strive to comply. There is no loyalty scheme, only the threat of prosecution.
August 9, 2025
Sir John claims he has no choice about how the government spends the tax he pays. During his time as my MP I had no choice but to pay tax to fund his salary.
Reply You reinforce my point.
August 9, 2025
You’re comparing apples to pears. It’s much easier to set up a retail store with relatively little capital. Personal effort can ensure success or otherwise.
The motor industry was somewhat interesting and competitive until the dead hand of government stepped in. Now due to stupid regulations entry level vehicles have vanished, I’m forced to pay for features I don’t want and the selection of models us diminished.
Enjoy your retail experience whilst you can because the man from Whitehall won’t like seeing an efficient market so he will endeavour to regulate it out of existence in the name of net stupid. It’s already started with the captive tops on plastic bottles, many more irritations are in the pipeline.
August 9, 2025
Your first point was my immediate thought too; apples and pairs. Sir J, please identify one water company in the UK that has direct competition.
The larger point, government interference. I understand that the EU/WEF preference is that all commercial activity be gradually subsumed into fewer, large, transnational enterprises, to make political control of industry more easy. Of course this is the socialist way too. Evidence for this is the massive increase in lobyists in Europe working for the larger corporations proposing laws to strengthen economic advantage. We see it in the UK with the tax structure and regulations.
Reply Competition in water is prevented by the regs!Thats the whole point.
August 9, 2025
Well vast interference in food and drink by the government – they even prosecuted using the criminal law market traders for selling a pound of apples to customers who wanted a pound of apples!
August 9, 2025
Stephen,
Choice is scheduled for July 2029 or earlier should the current bunch of ill equiped chancers implode at the door of the IMF.
August 9, 2025
Interstellar reading that there were no bids for Germanys latest round of windmill licences Despite a relatively generous guaranteed price there were no takers.
This exposes the lie that renewables are cheaper, milibrains is offering £113 gwh which is double the price of CCGT generation.
The USA has formally declared that in future no measures will be taken to mitigate CO2 production as it is perceived as a net benefit to the planet.
How will the EU and Westminster respond to that now the USA will be ultra competitive.
Sanity is starting to breach the battlements at last.
August 9, 2025
Exactly the difference is direct democracy. With shops you vote every time you shop as to which shops or markets you use, which products you buy, what times you shop…
With government you get a vote about every 5 years often for one of two realistic candidates who probably will not even try to deliver as promised when elected anyway as we saw with 14 years of the Tories and now Kier. Even if they do try the blob and judiciary will prob. prevent any delivery!
August 9, 2025
I expect the Student Union Marxists in the Government would jump at the chance to nationalise the food supply. That’s effectively what we had during and after WW2, with food vouchers and rationing, and I am sure the Control Freaks who infest the Establishment would love to be able to dictate to us what food we may buy, where from and when.
When it comes to the water supply, the Not-a-Conservative-Party had 14 years to make absolutely sure that water privatisation was working well. The “Conservative” Government knew full well that they were massively increasing the population and they should have ensured that the water supply infrastructure was upgraded to cope with it. They could and should have ensured that OFWAT was properly monitoring the suppliers and that sufficient profits were being utilised to repair and replace old pipes; provide new reservoirs and a water transfer system (north to south).
Successive Environment Ministers did none of those things. The Government FAILED to do the job we paid them to do, which was to govern the country in a sensible manner and in the interests of the British people. And so privatisation of the water supply is now deemed by most people to have failed ….along with pretty much everything else.
The situation we now find ourselves in – with Student Union Marxists now running the country into the ground – is the consequence of 14 years of “Conservative” failure to do ANYTHING sensible.
August 9, 2025
Government are useless at management, end of. Private or Nationalised under government control or guidance are doomed to failure, because any government seeks political outcomes rather than customer satisfaction. Check out the performance of the current incombents. Just look at what they persist in doing to car manufacturing.
August 9, 2025
NHS is nationalised. Read what you like into that
August 9, 2025
Indeed they are also useless at regulating (or purchasing) things like water, banks, energy, equitable life, HS2, free speech…
August 9, 2025
@Donna – ‘the chance to nationalise the food supply’ isn’t that what they are doing, by giving away our fish, blocking our fish industry, Forcing the sell off, of our farm producers
August 9, 2025
+1
August 9, 2025
Food was NOT nationalised even during the war. Because of limited supply it was rationed, but even so my father told a story to a relation presenting two left sides of home produced pork to the food inspector. They had killed 2 pigs instead of the one declared, but even so they wanted to comply with the law and have both approved by the food inspector as safe, so they presented one side of each pig however no pig has two left sides. Is suspect the inspector was aware of the sleight of hand anyway because no two pigs are identical.
Even British cheats were law abiding before the invasion.
August 9, 2025
Good Morning..
Agree absolutely with your praise regarding national food retailers and indeed it was to their credit we negotiated Brexit successfully.
The comparison wanes somewhat whence put up against longstanding “privatised” failures who have exhausted the patience and bank balances (much more to come) of their customers – absolutely post covid.
I understand your enthusiasm for privatisation as a right winger – likewise – but it has just all gone horribly wrong in this country and the most expensive PR agency in the world wouldn’t be able to change perceptions anytime soon.
August 9, 2025
I agree. The experience/perception of privatisation failures has made it a virtually impossible sell for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps if the Not-a-Conservative-Government had had the guts to privatise the BBC, things might be different. But they didn’t.
August 10, 2025
I’m not sure that privatisation of TV helps much. Regulatory control intervenes to favour particular licensees. GBN struggles against the tide, but must give prominent roles to its ever present lefties, making its radio unlistenable at times with the way they talk over everyone in a screech.
August 9, 2025
A good “everyday” example that even Labour voters can understand.
August 9, 2025
The balance of what you say is true. While you are a happy shopper these same supermarkets predate upon the farming community with ruthless avarice. This has had a positive effect on the farmers in that they realise that added value is the way to survive. The result is that all the best meat, cheese, ice cream, and vegetables are found in farm shops and professional butchers. I have a preference for quality over voucher collection any day. Supermarkets are only used for items I can’t find anywhere else, Bomba or Arborio rice for instance.
When it comes to fish and shellfish our supermarkets are abysmal in terms of availability and price. You need to shop in a spanish supermarket to realise how grotesque the difference is. The irony is that much of what you can buy at a spanish outlet comes from UK waters. The basic problem is that UK shoppers do not buy fish or shellfish. I have just spent a week travelling in the far North of England returning with whole smoked kippers and a variety of cheeses. Those in Londonistahn should aspire to the quality of life in the far north, and anyone about to set up high tech production should pay it a visit. It is you in and around the capital that need levelling up.
August 9, 2025
You confirm Sir John’s thesis. The supermarkets supply what the customers demand and do so as efficiently/cheaply as they can. Alongside this they make a profit for their investors.
If UK customers demanded lots of seafood the supermarkets would offer more. The reality is their fresh fish counters are closing as too few use this facility.
Plenty of farms now have farm shops – generally priced at a premium to supermarkets even though they are claiming to cut out the profiteering supermarket.
August 10, 2025
As a regular farm shop user I recognise they charge a premium price, but they also provide premium quality and service. You can place orders at the butcher’s counter for specific cuts or sausages etc. and the meat quality is outstanding: you often see the cattle on the surrounding paddocks, and slaughter is not halal, resulting in superb flavour and texture. The lamb comes from other nearby farms, which again you can view on the hoof. They have direct delivery of fish and seafood, and again you can order. Most veg and fruit are local, fresh picked and top flavour.
August 9, 2025
Try shopping at Morrison’s for fish. They have a fresh fish counter that rivals any Spanish supermarket. They also have their own trawlers. The problem with the UK is that although we are surrounded by rich fishing grounds, our fishing industry has been run into the ground by successive governments. Take where I live, which used to have the third largest deep-sea trawler fleet in the country, with 120 trawlers, employing about 11,000 people directly and indirectly. In the 1990s, many fishermen sold their boats under a government decommissioning scheme. Yet again, it is an example of a successful industry which has been around for thousands of years, devastated by our own incompetent politicians.
August 9, 2025
Apples falling off the trees everywhere in in the UK currently & yet the super markets are still selling ones 12 months or 6 months old!
August 9, 2025
We instinctively know that if food supply were to be nationalised we would (if lucky) have two choices of biscuits, two choices of cheese etc., and there would be shortages of everything.
August 9, 2025
Sir John your continued focus on nationlisation is just to justify private ownership of the utilities, rail and road, in my opinion. You got away with the privatisation of telecoms but not with the Post Office.
Without the above we would have no food unless we had a big garden or allotment. It may be possible to have our own well.
Farmers do get Government aid in certain circumstances but tend to operate without political interference. Up until now.
You don’t need too much Engineering and a Nation Wide Network to bake bread. You can bake your own bread at home.
We trust our Farmers to farm, not so our recent and current governements to govern cost effectively as you have clearly indicated.
In any case you are refering to the distibution of food not its manufacteur.
Do the farmers get a fair price for what they do or does the private distribution system not leave much profit if any for them?
It is a fact that private ownership or nationalistion as we currently implement it of utilities does not work in the longer term in best interests of the tax payer let alone National security. Net Zero and population increase has not helped and clouds the picture a bit. The thing that could have been a big earner for the tax payer, Telecoms, was sold off.
I think Sir John all your readers agree that UK Governments cannot run utilities, business and even the country for the benefit of the tax payer.
There just seems a complete lack of expertise to do anything correctly resulting in major losses for the tax payer and future generations of tax payers
Reply The Post Office has been nationalised for many years. Telecoms and airlines show complex systems with expensive infrastructure can be supplied by a competitive market
August 9, 2025
As I have pointed out before the infrastructure for Airlines is the Air we breath. The control mechanism is complex but the infrastructure itself is not complex ( all based on telecoms if we include Radar)
Telecoms can be complex but can also require no wires at all. It is a bit like road and air transport very easy to have multiple operators. Investment in infrastructure relatively cheap compared to water, gas and electricity and rail. And also road for that matter which does not require a complex control system to function.
Telecoms being telecoms is up to a point a self controlling network.
The technology for controlling every other form of network. However a national telecoms network with multiple owners does have problems with support for customers if the problem involves going from one Network provider to another. For example City Fibre to BT as I have found out. (I mean using City Fibre to connect to a BT service)
So from a Engineering point of view comparing Gas, water and Electricity to telecoms and airlines is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Gas, Water, and Electricity have very complex telecoms networks to control their operation. Railway signalling has a telecoms network behind it.
reply what nonsense. The infrastructure for air travel is airports and highly controlled airspace with regulated access, backed by complex radar technology.The infrastructure for telecoms/ broadband is. multiple cables and fibre optics, masts, switching stations and big computer back up.
August 9, 2025
If someone says nonsense to your point of view you know you are undermining their position.
The core infrastructure of the railway is track. Trains run on track
What do aircraft run on ? Air
Both need control systems to avoid collisions. Stations and Airports are arrival and departure points attached to the core transport infrastructure
Reply Planes need runways to take off and land, airports to refuel and regulated air corridors to fly in congested populated places where people want to use them.
August 9, 2025
A small plane can land and take of from a grass field. It does not need a runway. There a many small airports. We have a few in Berkshire.
I am only highlighting the basic transport mechanism required
Air space for an aeroplane and track for a train. A railway is not much good if only track.
You only need one water pipe into the house. Same for Gas and Electicity no matter who is supplying you (billing you). You join your supplier to one common network. You can’t modernise water, gas and electricty.
This is not true of telecoms so you have to have perhaps three
“Pipes” as the old cable will not support the higher data rate (bandwidth)
Telecoms cable easy to hide, not so easy with pipes entering the house.
Reply Neither of us is getting what we want. Labour government will not nationalise water as it cannot afford to it. Nor will it allow competition to tame the monopolists.
August 9, 2025
Agree, not sure what the answer is. I think Mrs Thatcher nearly got it right with a joint ownership share scheme, but it did not stand the test of time.
August 10, 2025
The majority of our deliveries come via otter carriers and not the post office. That can even be true for documents, and with the rising price of a first class stamp we will soon find the PO loses much of its business. It does still provide some inefficient counter services mainly for government.
August 9, 2025
Isn’t the problem largely that we end up with monopolies, either straightforward State ones, or regulated private sector ones? Also don’t many of them use networks that can’t be duplicated (power distribution, water supply, sewage drainage, railway tracks) that another monopoly maintains, sometimes with a capacity limit on how many suppliers can use them?
I can’t see how one can break away from this. In the Victorian era, there was space to build up the networks privately then run them for profit. Now it’s prohibitively expensive due to our urbanisation and planning & other regulations.
Which areas of services would be open to the free competition approach (which I agree provides better choice and service)?
Reply The problem is the state creates artificial regulated monopolies which give privatisation a bad name. Competitive markets deliver well.
August 9, 2025
You make a doctrinal argument Sir John and like followers of any religion or belief ignore the facts.
Bread can be made by multiple suppliers or produced in the home.
Water has but one delivery system and a private company can not easily develop the required infrastructure. There is no competition. With water we don’t get to choose our supplier like with electricity or gas.
The rail network can not be replicated, nor can the road network and national grid remains a public entity.
Punitive regulation us required if these delivery mechanisms are to be privatised as there is no competition possible.
Cable and wireless failed several times to challenge BT due to set up costs.
Virginia came in and bought it up cheap but only exists because someone else paid for the infrastructure.
If we were starting from scratch and building infrastructure then your approach may be the best one but the infrastructure exists. Nationalisation is likely the best way to maintain it.
Reply Bottled and canned drinking water is supplied by a competitive market. There are various ways to get water to use other by one pipe into the home. Common carriers work well for gas and oil.
August 9, 2025
Reply to reply.
Sounds like when I went to Morocco some years ago, the toilets in the hotels there were stacked with water bottles with which to flush the loo. Don’t want anything like that in my home thanks very much and the price of bottled water is hundreds of times more expensive than tap water. Storing oil or gas off the grid is expensive, as I well know, so I don’t want to buy water that way as well thanks very much. A very poor argument Sir John, verging on the ‘I’ll say anything however ludicrous to prove my point’. You haven’t.
Reply You deliberately misconstrue my arguments. My point about bottled water was to show there is some competition and water does get to homes without a pipe, but the monopoly prevents suppliers doing this for cheaper water in bigger quantities. Why defend the legal monopoly? If people come forward with better and cheaper we win. If they don’t it proves it is a natural monopoly.Nothing to lose. I think there will be wins with different water sources and different delivery methods. We know common carrier competition works we have that with gas.
August 10, 2025
I’m not defending monopolies. You deliberately misconstrue what I said. I did not misconstrue your point. You said water can be delivered other than by pipe. Of course it can, but at huge cost and I doubt there is any competitive market for that. You need storage, pumping and of course the bowsers to do the delivery, all of which is expensive for a product that should be nearly free. I don’t defend monopolies – I never wanted the privatisation in the first place which has downgraded our shores, rivers and our wallets. In short your idea is a disaster and it would be more becoming to admit it.
Reply We are not going to agree. We can use existing pipes as common carriers, we may want and need new pipes, we could collect rainwater at the property etc. Let competition decide. Competition will not give us dearer or a disaster as no one would buy those.
August 9, 2025
Reply to reply
The cost of bottled water would be prohibitive to flush toilets or bathe in.
There may be a common carrier for electricity and gas but the means of production is varied. Not so for water where the infrastructure dictates we are supplied by a monopoly.
I appreciate your sentiment but I feel the practicality is missing
August 10, 2025
Try looking at actual water supplies, and you’ll find that they typically come from a range of sources for cities. There is scope for competition between those sources. A local borehole may also be a competitor to a water main or more distant reservoir.
We actually have large regional monopolies. Break them into smaller entities for supply, and you get inter area competition that can make a real difference for industry or the location of new housing. Sewerage is mostly very local. There is every reason to encourage more competition to maintain it and to run treatment plants. Dividing up into smaller units allows local people to decide on their priorities and what they would pay for.
August 10, 2025
The barrier to entry is very high for what you propose.
August 9, 2025
‘The state creates artificial regulated monopolies’. Indeed in April 1989 the Conservative Government created those private monopolies after preventing the previous Regional Water Authorities from borrowing money for capital projects
(Hukka, JJ and TS Katko, 2003, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre).
This display of ideology is nauseating in how the presented information is biased/truncated.
August 9, 2025
You have twisted and misrepresented the privatisations that were undertaken and a roaring success until the EU aligned political class sabotaged them by removing the safeguards.
Stop ‘quoting’ idiot international/government bodies which have no grasp of political economy as those they are the font of all wisdom. You make a fool of yourself repeatedly.
August 9, 2025
What exactly did you expect to happen in 1989 hefner?
The Regional Water Authorities were abolished and replaced under privatisation.
August 9, 2025
@Wanderer, @Reply – the competition authorities refuse their job under the direction of a Government, a Socialist mentality Government that see something ‘big’ as the only outcome.
The water monopoly; we have an estimated 28.4 million households in the UK. Yet one company gets to serve 17 million customers(I guess some of those to be businesses & industry) as a State enforced monopoly. That is just to big and holds us all hostage, without choice. We are held hostage by Government, that fights democracy and wont let us vote, even if it is to confirm direction every 2 years, as is the norm in such situations that we call democracy. But at least for now we will get a choice, someday perhaps if that’s not also cancelled, the choice the competition authorities who have the power to force a break-up deny the consumer.
August 9, 2025
No disagreement but I believe in France, standard baguettes are still State subsidised?
August 9, 2025
connexionfrance.com 23/01/2022 ‘Is price of baguettes and other bread fixed by the French government?’
france24.com 03/01/2023 ‘French baguettes under threat as bakers face electricity price hikes’.
There are problems for the French bakers but not about an inexistent subsidy.
August 9, 2025
The production of all the ingredients are subsidised so the bread of France is subsidised.
August 9, 2025
N’importe quoi!
August 9, 2025
Food retailing is a shining example of what private enterprise can achieve.
Also, please consider food manufacturers and their fantastic record on food safety.
I worked for a while at a food manufacturer – a famous brand name. The company was paranoid about food safety. Everything had to be washed over again. If anything touched the floor (which was as clean as whistle) it had to be washed all over again.
It’s quite amazing that millions of food products are consumed every day and yet food safety scares are extremely rare.
August 9, 2025
@Kenneth – so true, then think why is Government hell bent on destroying the producers, the fishermen, the farmers. Pure spite
August 9, 2025
Well, most of that is due to regulation. In the ‘good old days’ before any of that, flour, for instance was bulked up with plaster. You can’t just trust to luck and the market, things have to be controlled as well.
August 9, 2025
In my experience the motivation to keep food safe was almost entirely due to the commercial needs of the business and the obvious fact that people do not want make other people unwell.
If a brand has a food safety scandal, it would wreck the brand and could ruin the whole company. That is the main motivatoin behind making food wholesome, not regulations.
August 9, 2025
It’s good that you were able to obtain good discounts on your food shopping. And that you are able to afford to buy any at all, after the huge increase in food inflation over the past couple of years
Apparently about 2.5 million very poor folk, many with more than one job, have to use food banks in this country. Maybe you cold consider donating a portion of your food savings to one in Wokingham.
Reply Who in Wokingham with more than one job goes to the food bank? Are they getting their in work benefit top up? I didnt meet such a person when I visited the Food bank as MP
August 9, 2025
If you give out “free” food you create a demand from people who want “free” food. I am sure there are some very needy people, but I am also sure that there are many who are exploiting an opportunity …. rather like the criminal migrants, who are given “free” everything and which just creates an unlimited number of criminal migrants and the Motability scheme, now so expanded that people who are patently NOT disabled are given a “free” car.
August 9, 2025
As I understand it, you can’t just rock up at a food bank and take what you want. You have to be recommended by someone like a doctor or other professional and you get what they have in stock, not what you may want.
August 9, 2025
Yes. But doctors assess those who are claiming sickness benefit, including those who apply for and get a Motability vehicle , and it is generally accepted that a great many are gaming the system.
Do you really think that can’t and isn’t happening with food banks?
August 9, 2025
Doctors sign off fit notes for the mentally unwell without a second thought.
I do not think I would put too much faith in them doing effective due diligence on someone asking for a food bank referral.
I think GPs generally do a good job if you can see one but they should not be counted on to be arbiters of benefits nor poverty.
August 10, 2025
I mentioned doctors (wish I hadn’t) as just one of the professions. Changing the subject is whataboutery. Perhaps you can supply a better way of doing it?
August 10, 2025
I didn’t change the subject I doubted your referral process.
How would I do it differently, perhaps weigh the children each week.
August 9, 2025
@Donna +1. People are fed up with paying for others’ freebies: I drove past a hotel on the outskirts of Chichester that houses “migrants” yesterday afternoon, and was hugely surprised to see a crowd of about 150 union jack-waving happy-looking demonstrators outside, accompanied by about 30 grim-faced police personnel, two of whom were filming the protestors. It made me wonder how many of these protests are happening, if one was taking place in sleepy middle class Chichester.
August 9, 2025
I’m waiting on the day when food is means tested and I have to pay twice as much for my bread as others who ‘have less’ than me. Although, thinking about it, this is already happening in some ways given the numbers on state benefits and high tax levels.
On a different note, I watched Andrew Fox discussing Gaza with Bredan O’Neil on YT last night. It was a more balanced view of the situation I thought. I agreed with his assessment of the outcome of the recent decision by “the Clowns” (the ones who currently govern us) to recognise a Palestinian State.
August 9, 2025
Sir John
Of course they are good, they have competition, the consumer has choice. Which is always the aim in a free and open market place.
August 9, 2025
The Freedoms and the Choice is also the reason why this our Parliament, our MPs, our Government need to kill them off, its the Socialist WEF requirement of the Uniparty to destroy the food supply industry. To destroy the food chain, remove fish, remove farming and you remove those individuals the work hard and selflessly to put food our tables. All the time you have individuals that work outside of minimum work hours, that produce, you have people that cant be contained by the Socialist collective.
All Governments this century have fought the people hard to remove the individual, they have all strived for full blown Socialism verging on pure Marxist Dictatorship. The need a compliant collective in their own image. They need to block Democracy
Just think how great and prosperous this Nation would be if instead of a Legislator fighting the People we had a Legislator, Parliament, Government that worked for and with the People. Thank you – Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak and Starmer, you destroyed a country, a peoples, to impose your personal, very personal Socialist State on what is left of this Country. They as their own collective have done more damage than 2 world wars could even dream of achieving
August 9, 2025
I shop in supermarkets around the world, and the ones in the UK are by far the best for choice and price. I can buy produce here from Spain for far cheaper than in Spanish supermarkets. Supermarkets in the USA are dreadful, although they are huge stores, they have little choice, high prices and poor quality. The competition within the UK keeps prices low. They are a credit to our country, and long may they continue without Government interference.
August 9, 2025
@Christine. I beg to differ on one foodstuff. Try buying fresh fish in a supermarket in the UK and the quality and choice is dreadful compared to Spain and France.
I saw some lovely live crab in a southern Spanish supermarket last year and asked where it was from. It turned out to come from my home town on the Sussex coast, once famed here for its shellfish! Our local supermarkets here don’t stock local crab…it’s all collected into live holding tanks and exported, except for a few sold on the beach.
August 9, 2025
Ask for crab every time you go in the local shop. You will soon find they stock them for you.
August 9, 2025
“It’s all collected into live holding tanks and exported”
‘Live holding tanks’ are a European directive concerning the epuration of shellfish. Quite understandable really given the levels of sewage, pharmaceutical byproducts and general filth that have been allowed to pollute our waters for generations..
August 9, 2025
Loyalty schemes, discounting offers etc all marketing tools to encourage customers to buy more.
Conflating that with paying tax which merely loses revenue, very strange. Equally bread, low cost of entry etc versus the vast demands of a water infrastructure.
Obviously you think you can make a business case so as a potential investor tell me how much you need and then a time table to deal with regulatory/political hurdles and then build out plus return on my investment and when positive cash flow starts to see my return.
Billions needed, decade(s) to complete if at all, ROI, if you’re lucky.
I don’t think so.
August 9, 2025
On the fringe of what we are talking about today I highlight a visit to Richmond in Yorkshire. Richmond has a vast open centre, a possible legacy of cow / sheep herding days, it is cobbled, picturesque and car parking is free. As a consequence, all the surrounding businesses seemed busy, both during the day and especially at night.
This is a lesson that all towns in England might try replicating. I might add that everywhere was clean, tidy, well ordered and all seemed happy to be there. I was for sure.
August 9, 2025
@Agricola. Interesting. A quick online search suggests that Richmond Council has no Party in “overall control” and has a lot of independents. Oh for common sense and lack of Party affiliation in local administrations!
August 9, 2025
‘This House debates the proposition that UKPLC infrastructure is an attractive investment opportunity’
August 9, 2025
Sir John
I think most would agree with your train of thought. But the root of the problem isn’t these wayward monopolies, the wayward ego driven friends of friends Quangos, it is the way we are Governed from top to bottom.
We have a Political Class that is driven by a religious fervour of ideology, an ideology that forgets the only purpose they were empowered and paid for, that is to defend us on our behalf. To that end there is a need to defend democracy, personal freedoms, yet all that is shoved aside by the personal egoistical ‘in my image only’. The UK’s Religious Politics has become driven by ‘Self’, not Service.
The system need reforming recalibrating to bring it down to earth.
The differences in experiences you elude to are imposed by Parliament, its MP’s, the Legislators, Government. They manage all these outlets for this strife, they pay for the services with our money, so have total control. So at it’s the root, the source, that needs tackling not the messenger
August 9, 2025
you are right john, people build up myths about things in their mind, to much tv or reading BS and bad schooling, opening up water like electric would be great along with rail.
August 9, 2025
A vital national service that will be nationalised will be energy if the CCC/DESNZ/Ofgem/NESO continue with their plans to decarbonise (well, 95%) of our electricity by 2030 with their Clean Power 2030 plan. It simply will not be possible to have a viable market place for energy when the renewables are subsidised for when they produce power and for when they do not and for backup thermal generation also to be subsidised to maintain a fleet capable of supplying 35 GW or more whilst only supplying 5% of the energy needed and at the same time requiring to be run whilst not producing any electricity for the inertia required to ensure grid stability. How can a market operate when prices quickly fluctuate from very high when the renewables fail to negative when they produce a glut?
August 9, 2025
In addition to the other ‘retail’ crimes of the state – pricing of often opaque. Deliberately so.
August 9, 2025
China’s gold and foreign exchange reserves totalled $3.3 trillion at the end of July, down about $25.2 billion from June according to data from the People’s Bank of China.
In July, for the ninth consecutive month, the PBC bought gold bullion, this lifts their YTD net purchases to 21 tonnes, with their total gold holdings now hitting the 2,300 tonne mark. The Bank of England bought zero gold. The last time the BoE bought gold was in 1938
Right across the world central banks are adding to their gold holdings, as fast as the mines can produce it. Interestingly, Comex gold futures rose to a new all-time high of $3,534.10 Thursday, which sent spot prices rocketing through $3,400 per ounce. The price differential – what has been caused by a rumour that Trump is going to subject gold bar imorts to a 39% tariff – is now offering outstanding opportunities for arbitrage.
The whole world is running on tick. Eventually, the debt bubble is going to burst. When it does, those owning gold bullion will preserve their wealth. Those in debt, holding equities or mortgaged property are going to be living in cardboard boxes in shop doorways, getting moved on at night in the rain by the police.
August 9, 2025
Correction – apologies for the typos, should have read;
“The price differential – that has been caused by a rumour that Trump is going to subject gold bar imports to a 39% tariff – is now offering outstanding opportunities for arbitrage”
August 9, 2025
Try buying fuel for your car or food using your wonderful gold SG
You will need to find someone willing to trade with you first.
Unlike cash and cards.
ps
You are very pessimistic and remind me of people I saw decades ago walking up and down Oxford Street in London with placards saying “the end of the world is nigh”
August 9, 2025
I have a choice.I can bake my own bread ,I can buy half baked granary or white rolls.There is a great variety in German owned supermarkets, with quality equal to M&S.Water pipe lines are not likely to be laid down according to ownership and more added with different companies. It is the same supply and different owners.Food supplies come from many different sources, even my back garden..well sometimes if veg doesn’t go to seed.
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The main cost of gas is the gas itself and the tax on its production. Gas companies compete to send it down the pipe. Telecom companies often decided we needed a new better wire or cable into house so installed a new one to provide us with better service and capacity. Why are you afraid of choice? Its like reliving the big argument put to me before BT privatisation that private companies would close all the public call boxes! They didn’t. The public did by acquiring mobile phones instead.
August 9, 2025
It’s prudent to choose wisely with an eye out for who is serving their own needs solely and those who are trying to keep the UK on the map as the UK.
I like variety but I come from an organisation that made GB great and have witnessed the persistent destruction as the NHS has been used and abused.
You know very well all the self serving wil go across the water when it suits them.
August 9, 2025
At the time of telecom pravatisation moble phones were few and far between and home phones not the norm. Unless your employer paid for it.
You had to make it a condition of sale that call boxes were not removed. You can’t make a profit from call boxes.
No telecom company installs anything better unless you ask and pay for it.
August 9, 2025
Gold makes for a good doorstop, in the me and you world, when things go wrong gold is useless.
August 9, 2025
Of course just simple reasoning applies.Value is created by need primarily and lust for power and wealth follows.
The wars highlight this position..deprive the population of the basics and human rights and you become dominant until the situation is mirrored.
August 9, 2025
Got to give it to you there – supermarkets are great! My favourite places to shop! Amazing choice, great customer service, great prices and all under one roof.
That is the surface of it. Try talking to food producers with supermarket contracts, both here and abroad. Maybe you will hear a different story. You are right to point to another highly suspect and murky industry, driven by the relentless pursuit of profit at any cost.
With one breath you encourage more home grown food production and support for local farms and fisheries, then with another you extol the virtues of a system that is driving farmers out of business.
To build wind farms and solar panel fields.
Not the slightest trace of support for a nationalised food industry there. Perhaps a more enlightened one though..