As a couple of our water companies let us down again and struggle to supply many tell me the answer is nationalisation. They wouldn ‘t like the big increase in tax bills it would take to buy them up and put in enough investment in new reservoirs and pipes. They should also ask how did it work when it was nationalised? The truth is it was dirtier and there was even less water available when it mattered.
People are currently grappling with a few hot days as if they were something exceptional. We have had hot summers in the past. A maximum temperature of 36.7 was achieved in 1911. In 1976 there was prolonged heat from 23 June to 27 August with a 35.9 peak on July 3. This year we had a very cold start to May with frosts which went without much media interest. This was followed by a few hot days and now a few more this week before the temperature subsides again.
In 1976 the much longer hot period combined with a long drought, lasting sixteen months from the previous May. It was the water shortage that did the damage. Crops failed , moors caught light, people had to severely cut back their water use just when they wanted to water gardens, fill paddling pools and take more baths and showers. The main feature of the weather crisis was it revealed the disaster of our nationalised water industry. All those who today think nationalising will make a difference should read the history books on just how bad the nationalised industry was.
It had failed to build enough reservoirs and failed to mend leaky pipes. As a result the UK soon ran out of water in the summer of 1976. All hosepipe use was banned. In several areas of the country mains water was cut off. People had to queue to fill buckets at a standpipe in the street. Water rationing was introduced. People were told to put bricks in their toilet cisterns and to only flush occasionally. They were told to reuse water within the household, keeping the dirty water from washing for toilet use or for gardens. Individual daily use of water halved from 190 litres to just 95.
Water rationing was imposed on industry so plants had to shut down or run well below capacity to live within their reduced water allocations. That had knock on effects on employment and overtime. Farmers just had to watch as their crops withered without water to irrigate. The economy took a nasty knock. The government panicked and appointed a Minister for Drought, which was bit like employing someone to give us a rain dance. The Minister turned out to be lucky, as the rains came in September and October to refill the almost empty reservoirs.
The water industry kept pumping raw sewage into our seas from our coastal towns, giving us dirty beaches and dangerous sea bathing waters . The industry kept up pressure on governments to carry on with this practice until the Conservative government in 1989 brought in a Regulator. That led to reporting the dirty secret and to some clean up. The nationalised industry did not have the money or the will to expand the pipe network to avoid the need to discharge sewage into rivers, or to keep more of the clean water it put into the system before reaching households. Every pound of new investment counted as public spending, and the needs of the NHS or schools were nearly always a more important priority than water spending.
We need a better regulator to allow more investment by our present water industry whilst preventing excessive returns to management. The best way to do it would be to allow water competition. We have a competitive gas industry with a single pipe into every home, and could do the same for water.
July 6, 2026
Good morning
The sale of our utilities has not gone well. Sold off to private small investors in the early days, hoovered up by Hedge and Sovereign Wealth funds. Their only goal is profit, not service.
To the long suffereing public Nationalisatuon seems the solution. Neither are.
July 6, 2026
But it’s not entirely the water companies fault. Importing over 5 million people and refusing planning permission to build more reservoirs is coming home to roost.
Admittedly this wasn’t a problem in 76 but it sure is now.
July 6, 2026
I agree, but your numbers are way out. The UK population was 56m in 1980, 57m in 1990 and 70m today. That’s a 13m increase (not 5m). That level of increase in sewage requires a lot of investment!
July 6, 2026
Well nothing wrong with the pursuits of profit in a fair, competitive market that is well and honestly regulated. The problems are government cannot even regulate things well, let alone run them. When they do run things like trains, social housing, the NHS they rig an unfair market so as to kill competition and fund them from money grabbed stolen off tax payers not from paying happy customers.
July 6, 2026
We have fair trade/competition regulators but they never look at the largest pushers of unfair trade the government. This in healthcare, transport, the BBC propaganda outfit, subsidised housing, banking, school (free state schools or pay four times over in various taxes and fees and same for healthcare).
Why do these regulators ignore the main source of grossly unfair competition the tax payer funded state sector?
July 6, 2026
Nationalisation is not the answer, a strong regulator is. One with the power to direct how much customer bills should be and how the water company spends its income. Priority would be on running costs, employee wages and maintenance. If money doesn’t stretch to paying interest on debts taken out to pay dividends and excessive executive pay, then those creditors have to do without. The water company can take on debt to pay for investment projects, but for those debts to be honoured the regulator has to approve the investment.
If the water company is fined, the fine takes the form of issuing shares that go to a customer trust. Under the current system any fines don’t compensate the customer for poor service.
July 7, 2026
Water is probably the most precious thing on earth to maintain life. Placing it in the hands of idiots has been extremely expensive and worst still: dangerous.
July 8, 2026
I think there should be a mechanism for the public to influence how much is spent and what the priorities are. At the moment the rules are defined by the Retained Law based on the EU Water Directives, which are not designed for UK conditions. They impose requirements of confining supply by river basin, so banning new aqueducts from wetter regions, a sceptical attitude to dams (resulting in dams being removed in Spain, causing floods) and new reservoirs, rationing and price hikes to achieve that.
We should not be ruled by the thoughts of Brussels or quangos taking their lead from there or the UN.
July 6, 2026
In the NW, we haven’t had hosepipe bans, and there haven’t been any service cuts. Any work seems to be done very quickly to get the supply back on track. I’m happy with the service.
July 6, 2026
I remember the 80s/90s water shortage because I was looking after Trucks that we’re pulling tankers to fill reservoirs up, but at the time they were also taking about putting water pipe links from Scotland to keep us supplied so this didn’t happen again , then there’s the big fact that we are surrounded by the wet stuff so why haven’t these water companies put water desalination plants in to give us endless supply of the drinkable wet stuff , or silly me because of the cost plus they wouldn’t have an excuse to rip us off like oil and gas
Well done Englands lads lets hope this is our year to be bringing home that trophy that would be a bit of cheer this country needs at the moment 🏴🏴
July 6, 2026
Desalination plants are prohibitively expensive. They have been talking about implementing them in the south of England, whilst also developing more housing. If you want a water supply, do the development in Scotland.
July 6, 2026
Well they need a lot of energy but not that expensive so long as you have cheapish energy but thanks to Ed Milibrain we do not have this. But no need for this in the wet UK at all we just need fewer people or more reservoirs same with houses, roads, schools, hospitals…
Combining power stations with desalination plants can make some economic sense in dry countries. No need in the UK just more water storage is needed.
July 6, 2026
I think that people see things through rose tinted glasses – not just Nationalising varying industries, but also being kind to immigrants, Net Zero, a solution to the Middle East issues etc.
These are all very tough issues and the question to which socialism is the answer has yet to be discovered.
The failure of our politicians to think clearly about the issues leads to policy driven by opinion poles. The result of this will be that we get our faces bitten off.
JR-M had an interesting blog in which he discussed the fact that politicians should campaign more on their values, so that when an unforeseen event occurred people would have an understanding and expectation of how they would react.
Nationalising is a complete disaster. However the privatisation of some industries has had issues impacting negatively. We have had enough time to study these issues and can propose an improved “privatisation”.
Reply The big mistake with water privatisation was the failure to allow competition. Public or private sector monopolies are a bad idea.
July 6, 2026
Companies can choose their water “supplier”. Why not individuals?
July 6, 2026
@ Reply – true. Privatisation has maybe the wrong wording/conation ‘is private’ hidden and off the market or is it a market place player. Splitting hairs, when did public schools become ‘private’? But yes we are here of course meaning those that get to play in the market place, compete.
The strangulation comes from the UK Parliament, instead of frameworks that remove constraints and allow success, they want personal frameworks to contain, mould, and generally taking a very personal view or a knee jerk response of the World. Yet in contradiction they feed those that rig the markets and protect elsewhere.
July 6, 2026
Indeed monopolies or oligopolies are a bad idea. Especially when they capture the regulators. See the vast harms done by Big Pharma and the duff Covid “Vaccines” and that regulation.
Now it seems expert Chris Whitney and this dire government want to force all people to take folic acid despite the fact that the vast majority of people do not need it and many will be harmed by it. See the excellent Dr. Claire Craig. Why force it on people who have no need of it and even those likely to be harmed by it.
July 8, 2026
Competition can take several forms. Competing supply points, including via new aqueducts and reservoirs; Competition between firms for network repairs and construction of new sewers and supply; perhaps franchise competition to run local sewerage works and sewerage.
The structure of the Dutch industry is interesting: at the top water has its own ministry, making it answerable to parliament, responsible for the major national infrastructure (including the Afsluitsdijk that holds back the North Sea and protects the created land from flooding), then a tier of regional authorities responsible for ensuring water supply, and local municipal companies that handle local pipes and sewerage.
July 6, 2026
Every time this subject comes up. Some posters (me) say we need to re-nationalise water, because privatisation has failed.
Lord JR fires back, nationalisation was a failure (fifty years ago) Perhaps it’s time to try again, with a tighter controlled nationalisation.
What we cannot do is carry on as we are……..
July 6, 2026
OA,
It is fairly obvious that we would be better off with most public utilities if we left things as they were.
Less expensive for consumers, better run, with long service employees who knew what they were doing, Profit did trump all.
One response is better regulators. However, we know that all regulators are useless, stuffed with sinecure types who could not find a job without patronage. After a few years they leave, join the industry they are regulating and offer advice on how to give regulation a swerve.
July 6, 2026
The Water is nationalised in Wales and Scotland, it’s no better. The question is how much profit do those organisations return each year to the exchequer compared to the privatised water companies returning to shareholders? Is the metered water much cheaper. If returns to the exchequer are lower, who is getting the extra £££s?
July 8, 2026
Both Wales and Scotland benefit from much more rainfall than most of Englad (the Lake District being an exception). They also have the hilly/mountainous terrain that makes tapping reservoirs and lakes much easier. Indeed, our Victorian forebears understood this and so the Elan Valley reservoirs supply Birmingham, and Lake Vyrnwy supplies the North West. We should consult their ghosts.
July 6, 2026
Old Albion – very subtle but real differences, is it nationalisation or privatisation that fails? The UK Parliament without experience, the wherewithal, wants to keep ‘their’ very personal tight control on things even when they pretend its arms length – they are looking and failing to achieve ‘reflected glory’. Did devolution work? Or was it the over arching do as I say Central Command that killed it. Did nationalising the Auto Industry, Steel Shipbuilding work? Has nationalising the Bank of England worked? Endless list of Parliamentary interference killing things off, they don’t even understand ‘Privatisation’, like Brexit they refused these things happening so they dont
July 6, 2026
The regulators virtually always get captured as we have seen so often. They essentially divvy up the benefits and both rip off consumers and tax payers too. When I was a teenager I was always told I was rather too sceptical but now I am far older I realise that I was never skeptical enough.
Remember that Labour person who emailed everyone on her list:- “today is a good day to bury bad news this after the terrorists murdered thousands on 9/11” Even I would never have expected this to quite such a blatant degree.
July 6, 2026
Some people have a short memory John, but one mistake was to allow foreign ownership of our water and power companies, because then they do not feel the full and direct affect of their own policies.
Yes things may have been worse in the past, but surely the idea is to improve as the years move on.
The fact that we have more houses and people in the UK than in the past does not help water or power management, especially when few new reservoirs, treatment and generation plants have not been forthcoming, or even been planned.
July 6, 2026
@Berkshire Alan – the contradictions of a clueless Parliament and their clueless Government. In 2 consecutive ‘ministry of information’ press releases(what else can you call them) The first stated that the Government will block all foreign sales of Businesses essential to the defence, the safety and security of the UK will be locked. Then in their next PR release they announced the sale of the company that makes our warship gearboxes to a foreign buyer.
Water and power are essential to the defence, safety and security of the UK. As you suggest the UK Parliament hands them away not to just foreign control, but to foreign nationalised business, then even to those companies that in their home markets they remain protected (Reciprocal? more of one way street).
That’s without considering the change of tax domain(no longer contributing on a level paying field, to home grown players), or considering the amount of assets that have to be sold to finance the debt in foreign domains.
July 8, 2026
Another consequence of the EU, which demanded that golden shares be cancelled to permit takeover by big EU (German and French and Spanish primarily) interests. Blair conceded.
But it is also part of the selling of the family silver to finance our trade deficit, which serves to widen it as interest, profits and dividends flow abroad instead of recirculating in the domestic economy.
July 6, 2026
You can live with very little water and save a lot (if you have a meter and do not want to pay too much). Flush loos far less often or use collected or grey water, do not water the garden or use collected water and shower very quickly circa once a fortnight – needed or not. Power showers twice a day is a modern thing.
In a real and competitive market water companies would give discounts for high users of water – not have hose pipe bans!
July 6, 2026
Power showers excessively, I agree, but 2-3 times per week, what’s the problem? They are much faster; you shower in half the time!
July 6, 2026
Ed Miliband 5/6 odd on favourite to be Chancellor. I wonder if he will work out why his moronic net zero lunacy is bankrupting the country. He prob. Already knows I suspect but does not care.
Karl Turner MP Currently an independent says he would be good as Chancellor as he struggles with his daughter’s O level maths. Well it did not stop Thatcher selecting John Major. But the. Double Firsts in Greats Oxon. Denis Healey thought 98% income tax rates were a good plan!
Karl Turner looks like a rather better option than net zero dope Ed Miliband to me.
July 6, 2026
Though perhaps charging less in winter and more in summer.
July 6, 2026
The idea that we “shower very quickly circa once a fortnight – needed or not” is not to be sniffed at!
July 6, 2026
You see John you are putting all the blame on the ownership and not the people in it.We have seen the damage to the country which over competitive private industry is doing.We know that the competition is so high that it is open to corruption.Tbe private industry want to win whatever.The various institutions are filled with many people who are slow and don’t know what they are doing.My take on this is that it is deliberate.
We own water let’s make the powers that be accountable.
July 6, 2026
Given the regulatory structures the owners are usually often doing the rational thing from their point of view to maximise their profits. Often by get out as much money as they can do and investing as little and spending loads on propaganda and lies – It is these structures that give you the outcome!
July 6, 2026
What do you expect unlike electric and gas there is no competition. Even moving water from different parts of the country by using river and canal a while back was ignored . Let’s just milk it for profit from day one
July 7, 2026
It is blinkered insight to say simply private or state ownership.It takes some one with a little inspiration to sort out the water problem
Ok do you day that this is because there isn’t competition.Why can’t competition be an internal project with lack of performance penalised?
Why can’t employees be better chosen so only the most effective are employed?
Why can’t employees be taught an all round job instead of comments like this is not my job or this is above my pay grade?
Why can’t equal opportunities go on performance and not on sexuality etc?
Why can’t management structure be reorganised so only those who can do become managers? Etc.
July 8, 2026
You can be sure that ESG, DEI and the woke agenda would be on steroids in a nationalised industry. You only have to look at the Environment Agency prosecuting someone for cleaning up a river that was its responsibility to understand that.
July 6, 2026
Ironically, the “Net zero” brigade insists on man-made global warming yet does nothing to combat the obvious maleffects of it.
Sir John rightly highlights the problems of 1976 and reveals the distinct lack of effort by any succeeding government to replenish our water supplies nationwide.
If anything should be nationalised, perhaps it should be our reservoirs, which must be regularly constructed to maintain a constant operational level in proportion to the number of residents living in the UK.
Currently, we are overpopulated and have an acute shortage of water reservoirs. Why?
July 6, 2026
Nationalisation is never the answer, but neither is the sell off in the way it has been done to-date. To much over simplistic naive even way things have been privatised so far has in itself led to the calls of more nationalisation to reverse the failures.
The over-riding consideration on privatisation as it is with everything else should have been the ‘market’, consumer choice should be paramount not the ‘lets get shot’ and remover the responsibility from Parliament.
As with roads, electricity, or the partial telecom’s, the access to grids is the opening up for a market place. The trouble is that the UK Parliament can’t see beyond its own ego they think they are the experienced master’s of hands on running of things. Something they keep proving is beyond their abilities.
Once something has been nationalised, wreaked, the extraction becomes clumsy and problematic. You are correct there is a requirement to separate the grid structures from the delivery. Water is convoluted as that also includes water out as much as water in, that means local infrastructure and local council cooperation. The other situation is that the likes of Thames Water is just too massive too unwieldy, it needs breaking up.
What ever happened to the Monopolies watchdog?
In simplistic terms the ‘grids’ logically should have local political control, but not physically run by them, but run on on term contracts awarded to private operators – that’s how the UK Builds it roads and for the most part it works. The No,No, is operations such as BT they are the grid and competitive delivery operator, as such the get to dictate the price rises and the when and how their half hearted competitors have to comply with.
July 6, 2026
In all this lets not forget how Socialism/Labour wreaked the UK’s Industrial base. Everything they Nationalised because inexperienced, a Labour MPs knows best, has failed. The Worlds largest exporter of Auto’s destroyed by Socialism and ego, then there was ship building, steel, the railways and yes even the NHS all destroyed by the Socialist Labour Party who without experience, ability knows best.
Now the Socialist/ Starmer Marxist Labour has morphed on to more treachery and it has destroyed the ability of the UK to defend itself, to be safe, secure and resilient. ‘The Plan’
July 6, 2026
Be careful not to fall into anti-socialist ideology. Capitalists should be OBJECTIVE about the most efficient way of running things at the best price. So as capitalists – not ideologists – we should be looking at what other Western countries are doing (in the spirit of case studies). They’re all essentially keeping water public.
But there are other types of industries where full nationalisation doesn’t work. Take the trains in Switzerland. They’re a mixture of private and public but you have to pay hefty fares if you want to travel in the trains around Switzerland. So this is where it works to see what other countries are doing (as most agree, Switzerland has one – if not the best – passenger railways in the world).
July 7, 2026
@Ed M – I am not fulling into the trap of ideology, but I do place logic at the top. The illustration I also gave was the worlds largest export nation for cars ‘was’ the UK. The UK Socialists, Labour, wanted to be bathed in its glory and success so nationalised the whole industry – for no other purpose but ‘ego’. Now now one can name a single UK owned car manufacturer.
I do recognise the underlining structures, infrastructure, that the taxpayer funded and created over the years should remain in their ownership, but what shouldn’t happen is that anything to do with the State should be anywhere near hands on running things. But I am only meaning the infrastructure, the single none competitive no market driven bit. Contracts, time limited specific contracts that go out to tender to run things seems more logical, then there is the right to cancel them for failure – that way the consumer, the taxpayer doesn’t have to pay for the infrastructure twice. As it stands there can be no cancellation of the bodies owning and running UK water they got handed the infrastructure and still finish up with taxpayer and consumer funding to maintain it. The consumer is in a lose, lose situation.
July 7, 2026
So a Capitalist looks at what the majority are doing and copies that.
And of course always makes sure they don’t reject socialist ideology aka bankruptcy, poverty and death.
Brilliant!
July 6, 2026
With some water companies in economic trouble the knee jerk reaction from labour would be nationalisation. That would be a big mistake considering how broke we are and unless more money is spent on improving water supply and clean sewage we will all suffer badly when fresh water supplies are cut off due to too many new people in the country during a hot period.
The water industry, if nationalised, without doubt would provide a very poor service.
It is odd that with immigration reducing the wage bill for big companies like water companies that they still can’t get things done effectively – could it be they have too many of the wrong type of employee?
July 6, 2026
There is the left-wing extremist Socialist Dogma problem that has things conflated and filtered to fit into a narrative even though they are unconnected that the morphs into the ‘speak’ of so-called intelligent people acting as spokes-people for this indoctrination. On TV the other day, after a couple of days of ‘heat’ it(the heat) was projected as the sole blame for the UK’s chalk streams being low on water. Chalk streams are fed by aquifers, the water flow in them is not instantly it’s at least a year and up in the making and not the immediate result of a couple of days of hot weather.
The BBC last week on the one hand was talking global warming, and then relating to how the highly increased Solar Flares were causing telecommunication problems. Man is affecting what the Sun does? Solar flares don’t affect World temperatures? Then also on TV we learn that the El Nino this year is more aggressive and causing massive heat surges.
Not to be left behind in a separate news item it showed how recent ice cores have demonstrated over time the Worlds Temperature was some 20C higher than today and was happening long before the time of Industrialisation. I guess that is why the Nordics called Greenland, green because when they found it and named it, it was
July 6, 2026
Yet again this problem stems from overpopulation. The infrastructure of this country just can’t cope. Nationalised utilities aren’t the answer and will put an additional burden on the taxpayer. I live in an area covered by United Utilities. They give a really good service and my water bill is the best value of all my utilities.
July 6, 2026
Let us remember that the Water companies were privatised with no debt. It is bad regulation that has allowed them to borrow to pay dividends, without requiring them to build new reservoirs and then expect them to cope with a 5 million population increase. Equally, the Regulator should not allow any sewage to be dumped in rivers or the sea.
Nationalisation won’t solve the problems, but a powerful regulator could.
The discharge of sewage cannot be solved overnight, but the regulator should allow no dividends to paid until sewage discharge is zero. Likewise, no dividends should be paid until every water company has built at least one new reservoir. At the same time, all immigration, legal or illegal, should be stopped for 5 years to allow the UK to absorb those here legally and deport those here illegally. As usual, our MPs are treating the effect rather than the cause.
July 6, 2026
I think this is the key quote from JR’s article – aimed at those recoiling from current water company profiteering. ‘… Every pound of new investment counted as public spending, and the needs of the NHS or schools were nearly always a more important priority than water spending…’
Nationalisation is not the answer for the reason cited above. Competition and better regulation, along with stronger sanctions for executive teams in the industry who have obviously failed.
Similar to the rail industry – folks now benefitting as I do from new, privately funded air conditioned trains, are unlikely to see these sorts of upgrades in the future when that spending becomes part of the PSBR and is presented against other priorities like NHS, pensions, benefits or VAT discounts for kids this summer at Chessington World of Adventures.
July 6, 2026
The UK has the most privatised water in the world (I believe / something like that). And one of the worst, if not the worst, service in the West.
We have to look at what other Western nations are doing here, and they are all opting for water to remain public.
So the water problem in the UK – whether it should be nationalised or not – is fairly easy to resolve. It should be nationalised (but we can’t afford to do that at the moment). So it has to remain as is (until our economy improves). And I don’t think we should waste much breath and energy on this issue.
July 7, 2026
🤯
July 6, 2026
Also, it’s a question of patriotism. I don’t want our water to be owned by foreigners. But this is secondary to privatisation of water just doesn’t work.
July 6, 2026
Soviet Social Media Control
Labour’s Social Media Crackdown Consultation Doesn’t Let People Oppose State Control of Platforms
https://order-order.com/2026/07/06/labours-social-media-crackdown-consultation-doesnt-let-people-oppose-state-control-of-platforms/
The now-published green paper from DCMS details that Labour is committed to a “prominence regime” for social media, requiring platforms and video sharing sites to make state-approved news more prominent to the detriment of independent content. The government would decide who counts as a “trustworthy news provider” but admits the criteria aren’t yet written apart from BBC etc…
July 6, 2026
water under the bridge.I,and probably not alone, want your opinion of the incoming prime minister.You know him.
This daily verbiage is obfuscation.What do YOU expect of him.That will set the cat among the pigeons and lots
of interesting to-and-froing
July 6, 2026
“The best way to do it would be to allow water competition. We have a competitive gas industry with a single pipe into every home, and could do the same for water.”
I think the problem is that because water is so much denser than gas it is much more expensive to pump around and distribute. This makes it very expensive to develop a national water grid and why there is no water connection between Scotland, who have plenty of water, and the south of England where it is needed. It’s costing £billions to move electricity from Scotland southwards for the Clean Power 2030 project. To move water would be even more expensive. The real problem is that the water regulator has been asleep on the job in not insisting the water companies expand their reservoirs and pipes to allow for the massive increase in population caused by immigration and instead allowed large shareholder payouts.
July 6, 2026
I think you are right to blame much of the problem of the water companies on a failure of regulation. But was it the enabling legislation that is to blame or inept regulation by the civil servants involved ?
The legislation governing the utilities in Hong Kong proved very successful. They limited returns on capital and limited gearing. This prevented a Thames Water type situation. And operations in HK were closely monitored by the regulator. The result was a good service for customers and a a good safe investment for pension funds and others.
Why didn’t British civil servants learn from this ?
Robert Thomas.
July 6, 2026
I well remember the drought and heat of ‘76.
Roscoe Tanner served the fastest ever recorded serves in the Wimbledon final, the heat playing a big part.
Monopolies and monopsony’s are the real problem. Competition is key and of course nationalised industries can never compete, so that puts an end to the ‘Nationalise’ argument.
July 6, 2026
I remember the standpipe in the street and having to go up and down many flights of stairs to fill up.
I also remember the terrifying incident in Camelford, the biggest mass poisoning we have ever experienced. It took place in the last year of nationalisation.
July 7, 2026
Lord Redwood, you need to address the failings of many current privatised water companies, and the main reason for their failings, which is the complacent unwillingness of Ofwat to hold them to account until it is too late. Look at what they have turned a blind eye to:
These water companies have for decades siphoned off billions of £ of cash borrowed from banks by their private equity owners of the water companies to foreign pension funds, and engaged in a ludicrous amount of cross-subsidy (as with energy companies) charging working customers a premium in order to hand out massive discounts to benefits recipients. The net payer and light user of water is at the bottom of the pile.
Sure, nationalization will make no difference, but then neither did privatization after de-nationalization – except in very basic service levels. The water companies still shut off water supplies at no notice and without notifying the householder. They still declare hosepipe bans after rainy winters. They still refuse to install meters because it’s ‘too difficult’. They are in fact – paradoxically enough – a right shower!
July 7, 2026
PS Your point about the need for more consumer choice and competition within existing pipework is a good one. But who is to be responsible for the pipework maintenance? Given the costs involved, it is a big question.
The existing supplier can be responsible, with common carrier regulation, or a separated regulated grid company. Challenger companies need the right to put in and own new pipes.
July 7, 2026
Would it be possible to discuss the possibility of our new Saviour to revive the insane Chagos deal. Apparently he has chosen to listen to the advisor to Starmer who has lots of Chinese dealings and employ him as security advisor and his strange woman running the cabinet office. Is the Mancunian candidate all that bright?
July 7, 2026
There is also the fact that he was the one who gave the IRA everything they asked for on behalf of Blair.