Not just shareholders feasted off a captive customer audience: the grossly incompetent TW board joined in snouts firmly in the trough.
The banks and brokers advising TW knew exactly what was going on.
They created the structure that allowed this legalised corporate rape. No monopoly utility should ever have been allowed to go private.
We are all victims, especially the residents inundated by raw sewage just a few years ago.
The big bloodsucking foreign funds now want customers to pay 40% more in bills. They need to be told to bugger off.
The government should put the company into administration now. The banks and brokers who floated TW need to be named and shamed.
Crucial Stats
£1.16bn Dividends paid by the utility from 2006 to 2015
£10.2bn Borrowings by March 2016.
In 2007 they were £3.6bn £260m Pensions deficit by March 2016
Gerry Grimstone, now Lord Grimstone and one of the'Great and the Good masterminded most of the privatisations. He has questions to answer. Maybe he can be questioned in the Lords.
ReplyDeleteThe privatisation of Water was but one of the legal plundering of state owned assets carried out by Margaret Thatcher. Can anyone really believe that any of them better serve the public interest better now that ultimately they are answerable to their shareholders and massively overpaid 'revolving door' management than they were than when they were owned by the nation and answerable to government ?
ReplyDeleteYes, but.
DeleteIf you were around at the time you will remember that the nationalised industries were stuck in a quagmire of inefficiency and bureaucracy. They were beholden to aggressive unions and lazy, incompetent managers. Privatisation would benefit the consumer through a healthy gust of competition.
Except in the case of water it didn't.
And competition has not worked in any of the other utilities or the railways has it ?
DeletePrivatisation of state owned utility companies has not worked in all of these so called markets. If these privatised undertakings worked properly under free market conditions, there would have been no need to appoint Regulators. It is because these markets do not function like the grocery market or the hospitality sector's market that state ownership came to pass in the first place.
DeleteThe privatisation of the gas and electricity sector has not enabled the consumer to benefit significantly. Yes, before the problems with supply of gas, we could all shop around and save a few pennies here and there but no domestic customer has saved thousands of pounds by so called competition and shopping around. Despite what the "Switching Sector" has claimed to the contrary, prices between the various energy companies do not differ widely and offer the customer vast savings. However, the profits distributed to shareholders of these privatised undertakings, since they departed from the public sector around forty years ago are huge.
In the case of Rail privatisation, Virgin Trains is reported to have made over £600 million in its final year of operation before Virgin lost its franchise. If the railways were still in state ownership, the profitability of the West Coast mainline (which was made profitable by massive state investment by British Rail in the sixties) could be used to improve the grottier lines on the network rather than put more money in to Branson's coffers.
Today (2 April) Evening Standard report:
DeleteThe latest Survation MRP poll shows a total wipeout for the Tories across the city, with the party reduced to fewer than 100 MPs nationally. Even if this survey overestimates the collapse in support, it contains a warning (for Conservatives) that must be heeded.
Bye-bye Greg
DeleteBye-bye Felicity
Boat Race teams risk kidney failure and sepsis from River Thames sewage water
ReplyDeleteUniversity of Oxford rowers have criticised sewage levels in the Thames after losing the Boat Race to Cambridge. High levels of E. coli have been found in the river where universities race every year.
DeleteSpeaking to BBC Sport, Mr Jenkins said: "This morning I was throwing up and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to race. It would be a lot nicer if there wasn't as much poo in the water. It's not to take away from Cambridge, as we may not have beaten them even if we were all on top form.” A second member of squad said three people had to miss training sessions due to stomach bugs. Coxswain Will Denegri said: "Whether that's related to E. coli in the river I don't know, but it's certainly not helped our campaign.”
Thames Water bills will rise by an average of 12.1 per cent from April 1, 2024, the water company has confirmed.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, the UK is alone in the world in creating a series of privatised monopolies to supply a product that is simultaneously necessary for life and capable of killing us all. What could possibly go wrong?
ReplyDeleteThames Water customers receive a huge rise in bills this week when sewage was pumped into London rivers for more than 9,773 hours in 2023.
ReplyDeleteThames Water = Turd Water