Thames Water - £13bn debt - going under

[JohnD]

Let no-one forget we are looking at the damage wrought by Conservative dogma.



"When Thatcher privatised the water industry in 1989 she wrote off £5bn of the industry’s debts, leaving water companies to start their new life with zero gearing. More than three decades later they have a collective debt burden of £60bn."

 

[blup]

How is it in any way sensible or defensible for the government to pour money into private water companies to prevent them going bust/ ensure a dividend or profit, yet it's contrary to everything the tories stand for to run a publicly owned water company.

Blup

 

[gas112]

I could have found out 35 years ago? Were the utilities in private hands then? Not sure where you are going with this, but I do remember asking for low risk investment (what ever that is).


What ever your waffle, it doesn't change the fact that the latest crop or Brexer Tories are greedy grasping scum. And they are enablers of greedy grasping scum.

Doesn't change the fact your a complete hypocrite complaining about profits and dividend payments made by privatised utilities whilst they fatten up your pension. Suggest you Google when utilities started to go private give you a clue start looking in the 80s

 

[noseall]

Doesn't change the fact your a complete hypocrite

Nonsense.

 

[noseall]

"When Thatcher

Witch.

 

[gas112]

She Saved the country from the gutter

 

[JohnD]

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524K views, 21K likes, 410 comments, 4.9K shares, Facebook Reels from Greenpeace UK.

www.facebook.com

 

[fillyboy]

And Scotland is irrelevant in relation to England's awful record.

Yet you wanted to add it to this thread.

It's not irrelevant. You suggested that the pollution of our rivers and seas is solely down to the fact that the water companies were privatised and the Conservatives have allowed them to do so without recourse.
Scotland have the same issues, and they're state owned under a socialist government.

The issues in Scotland may in fact be far worse as the Scottish water company's reporting of incidents are as opaque as Nicola Sturgeons financial dealings.

 

[transam]

At least it's not the French.

Oh god, don't tell me it's the French as well?

Scoundrels

Yep them scoundrels are up to there eye balls in it or were ??

Any caper like this you can pretty much guarantee the french are lurking in the back ground

Mind you we have been working for a French lady for the last 2 weeks

Very nice lady tbh the only conclusion I can come to is she has become Anglo philed having lived here for 20 odd years

Just goes to show inside every french person is Brit desperate to get out

 

[ellal]

The business model of Britain's privatised utilities encourages owners to run up huge debts and loot the company, at the expense of customers and the environment.

Possibly this was an unintended consequence of selling a natural monopoly.

It was of course an intended consequence...

That's what Corporate Governance is all about!

 

[JohnD]

It's not irrelevant. You suggested that the pollution of our rivers and seas is solely down to the fact that the water companies were privatised and the Conservatives have allowed them to do so without recourse.

Worse still, the looting of England's water companies means that the cost to the customer has been rising, while Scotland's is less than inflation.

The revenue into the English companies since privatisation was more than enough to pay for all the infrastructure and improvements

But the customers have been saddled with interest on loans funnelled to the owners. Every penny saved by pumping sewage into a river is a penny into the owners pockets.

Investors benefit from water groups’ borrowing at expense of customers

Capital expenditure could have been funded without debt since privatisation, UK study finds

www.ft.com

"Investors benefit from water groups’ borrowing at expense of customers​

Capital expenditure could have been funded without debt since privatisation, UK study finds"

 

[JohnD]

It's irrelevant in relation to Scotland,

It's not irrelevant.

Make you "mind" up.

 

[Notch7]

She Saved the country from the gutter

yes Thatcher created the Single Market and the EU

 

[fillyboy]

Make you "mind" up.

Unless your thick, you will know that the 'irrelevance' was because looking at numbers of incidents and comparing Britain and Scotland doesn't work because the Scottish are massively under declaring the number of incidents because they only monitor a very low percentage. This has been acknowledged by the Sottish govt who accept British water companies who monitor 90% of outlets are far more thorough than Scottish reporting of incidents.

Unless your thick, you will know that the 'relevance' I referred to was your inference that pollution by British water companies is because they have been privatised and because we have a Conservative govt, yet Scottish water who are state owned under a socialist govt are at least equal in polluting, possibly far worse because they only monitor a fraction of outlets compared to Britain.

Serious question John, do you like Marmite?

 

[fillyboy]

yes Thatcher created the Single Market and the EU

Thatcher created the EU?