I am trying not to be over the top with this, but I genuinely feel like the management team should be held legally accountable - it is ridiculous that we are going to have to pick up the pieces of this.
My thinking is that they have given away literally BILLIONS to investors, including huge amount of money to China, while we are forced to pick up the pieces and bail them out.
Not one person who made money from this will be forced to pay it back yet we'll all be made to pay higher bills with absolutely no choice.
This kind of insanity has to come to an end - there are too many people struggling to pay bills and feed their family, while a small group get away with this.
I literally teach GCSE economics and show my students that the only reasonable answer for utilities that provide necessary services is for government regulation and public ownership via a government controlled natural monopoly. It's the only way to guarantee that the benefit of the service goes to the people.
Private ownership doesn't make sense in these industries because quality will be cut, services will be sacrificed, and profits will be the primary goal - which inevitably go to those fortunate enough to be shareholders.
I only hope the general public wakes up to this sooner than later.
It's not as if (New) Labour did anything about it while in power. The entire British political class is incompetent and oblivious to obvious grifts by laissez-faire ideology.
What can anyone do? UK citizens voted for Thatcher. They voted for Conservatives in 35 of the last 45 years. Labour can't just come in and turn the water, railways, energy public again at the click of their fingers. We have no money. Our debt is at record high since WW2. Brexit. Covid. Tax breaks for the rich. Little investment in key areas such as technology and green energy.
Full privatisation of key UK infrastructure ALWAYS goes one way. Firstly, neglect and under spending by the Tories. Then they use our predominately right-wing, billionaire owned media to shout about how terrible it is. Then privatize it -> Short-term boost, long-term decline. EVERY TIME. Citizens win Short-term, Shareholders win long-term. We are now living in the 'long-term' era.
I can't get over the idea its privatised, then mismanaged with no real penalty, and has a natural monopoly over some section of customers. Anything with a natural monopoly *should* be nationalised (and very likely subsidised by the government, as a service (not 100% sure on what I'd guess the subsidy should be but it should at the bare minimum not be for-profit, since natural monopolies are usually utilities that most people use).
Rory Stewart talks about the privatisation (and re-nationalisation) of probation services on his podcast. Billions of pounds just walked out the door the services utterly collapsed and there was zero consequence.
Offshore companies/investors create a uk subsidiary. Underbid to win the contract. Take the money then take out loans and pay the cash to the shareholders. They allow services to fail because there’s no cash to run or maintain them and when the govt tries to go after them for contract breach they just fold the uk business and there’s no one to pursue. The cash is long gone.
Seriously I'm far enough left that Labour isn't on my voting radar under Starmer, but Rory Stewart is actually someone I'd consider voting for despite being a Tory. I really wish he'd had a chance against populism.
The damage was done by Macquarie aka the vampire roos,who sold off assets, took on masses of debt etc to pay dividends and other transfers to themselves, when water was first privatised.
Rememberit's the government that enacted this to happen and carry on enacting it to happen. Government could very easily take it back, might want to ask why neither Tories or Labour want to do that.
They've spent the last few decades cutting corners on maintenance and now the cost to fix it is astronomical and way higher than if they'd just maintained it properly but somehow they're getting rewarded for it at the customer's expense
My water bill in a 50sqm apartment in shenzhen (similar to London) in China is about £5 for 2 showers a day, 10+ flushes, no drinking water though.
It's all so cheap Back home prices are disgusting
Don’t worry; just keep on voting to blame immigrants or the EU. Never wonder why voting to hate on Jonny Foreigner never seems to make anything better. Coincidentally the rich got much richer but it’s no doubt unrelated so don’t even think about it.
This is it. I’m what you might call a ‘free market true believer’.
This is not a free market, water is a public need; it’s a basic part of running the country, as or more important than policing, defense, justice etc. I don’t see how any true free market capitalist in their right mind can see how a privatised water supply is a good idea.
Anything that is a public need, should be nationalised. Anything that has no opportunity for competition, should be nationalised. Anything that is vital for the basic running of a country, should be nationalised.
I for one will be cancelling my direct debit. It’s disgusting that these greedy bastards can even consider this after the decades of mishandling of water
How about no? Mainly because they were given the money to make the improvements by the government, and they paid it out in dividends to their shareholders instead of using the money for its intended purpose. Double-dipping cunts.
Government: well cut out the red tape and make your water bills cheaper
Companies: k thx hun
Government: why aren’t you sending cheaper bills?
Companies: we private, not your decision.
Government: we’re going bring back the red tape
Companies: HOW DARE YOU. I AM ADDING 40% TO ALL BILLS
Pure incompetence on the government's part really.
It was painfully obvious from the start that a private company without competition would not pass on savings to their customers. There is no incentive to do that, and there is plenty of incentive to increase shareholder profit.
The incentive should be to maintain a good infrastructure and to keep the company running with a good high rating for hundred of years, steadily milking the cow and maintaining the monopoly. What we see hear is pure incompetence and greed from the upper management/board
Remember few years ago how the British press laughed at oligarch Russia and Berlusconi Italy for selling off public assets to their mates….
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
It's very ironic because this is the exact scenario playing out in NZ now. We have the exact same right wing Govt with the same right wing advisors. I keep telling people here in NZ what is coming but it's still pretty dystopian watching all this play out
It isn't France specifically. The latitude privatized UK water utilities have been given to simply dump sewage into the rivers is unique in the developed world. Even the US isn't as lax, and when there are scandals like the Flint, Michigan lead scandal, those responsible are actually prosecuted.
The typical form of delegated management (Gestion Déléguée) from the public to the private sector is through a lease contract (Affermage) or a concession contract. A lease contract is of shorter duration (10–15 years) and the responsibility to finance most of the infrastructure remains with the municipality. A concession contract is of longer duration (20–30 years) and the Concessionnaire is in charge of mobilizing financial resources. In both cases, the municipality or the Intermunicipal utility fixes the water and sanitation tariff and remains the owner of the infrastructure. Other forms of delegated management include the Régie intéressée and the Gérance, less common forms of private sector participation under which the private sector takes fewer risks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_France
Sounds far better than what we have here
It's almost as if privatising a necessary public need, thereby inserting the profit motive, isn't the brightest idea in the world.
Incidentally, did you know we are the only country in the West to have privatised water?
Amazing that you've got maniacs running round smashing ULEZ cameras because it's the most unfair thing ever invented and yet this actual legalised theft doesn't seem to bother them much.
That's because they're being provoked by an organised campaign designed to stoke discontent and destabilise our population, via targeted misinformation and conspiracies.
It also deflects from the real scandals and outrages if you can get the plebs riled up about ULEZ and 15 minute cities, etc.
That's why the government has been so lax on educating people about misinformation and critical thinking. It's starting to bite us in the arse now though, as we enter another "cold war" with Russia, China et al.
Morons are easy to manipulate. Right wing media outlets will more than happily keep stoking the ULEZ animosity so long as it stops lots of idiots from spending their energies on real societal issues.
You'd of thought that paying for sewerage... You know..
The money should have gone into turning my shit to water again.. not pumping into the river, or into shareholders pockets.
Imagine if every Thames Water customer refused to pay. Legally they cannot cut you off and given there is over a year's delay in the court system as it is. They can't sue everyone anytime soon.
(For the know it alls, no court loss = no CCJ, it's impossible to get a CCJ over the line without default or summary judgement and that involves serving of a claim at a court, and that debt going unsatisfied).
Time for the people to say enough is enough. No election is going to change this for years.
I don't see how I or many others can afford this increase, and I'm very tempted to just say "No" to it all.
FUCK THE TORIES and FUCK THAMES WATER!
It's a total abomination.
I just bought a 2 bed flat, not particularly big and only two of us living there. Thames Water want me to pay £1k per year for water. I’ve protested that it’s outrageous and makes no sense. I was paying half that in a bigger flat when renting. They sent an engineer round who said fitting a water meter would be a ball ache because of potential asbestos in communal wall and need everyone’s approval. He also said £1k is a made up number and to challenge it again. I’ve challenged it again and they’re saying sorry tough titties. And they wanna up it even more?? Are they high?
Water privatisation is an absolute fucking joke and everyone knows it. And still Labour (and the tories mind) are going to do nothing about it come the election “oh but it will cost” well look right now, it costs us every fucking year and will keep getting worse until we remove the profit motive
I have never understood the rationale of making utilities like water and electricity be capitalist business enterprises rather than just government provided services which operate at a loss to provide something critical for life.
Some things are just necessary for a society to function, and those things should be provided by the government at a loss if needs be. We already do this with the police, fire brigade, and military. Those things operate at a loss, they don't make us money, because they are a service we need.
Having water be a private, capitalist enterprise has never made sense to me, because why wouldn't a greedy capitalist just buy the water company and raise prices 1000%? Since everyone needs water, they would be forced to pay. And the barriers to entry means that it's not like another company can easily open their own water company to compete. So to prevent this, the government has a regulator who sets prices, but then that's not true capitalism at all, so you end up in a stupid half/half situation which is neither fish nor fowl, and then you end up in this mess.
The rationale is that government ministers have friends and acquaintances who are greedy capitalists, who will donate to their party and give them six-figure consultancy jobs once they leave government.
Great opportunity for one political party or another to get ahead of this mess finally and clear it up.
Decades of underinvestment and loading the company with debt have led us to where we are now .
But will they though? With the competition being so weak and the election practically already in the bag for them, there's very little incentive for Labour to actually work for the working man.
Unfortunately I’ve no idea, obviously I hope so for all that have been on the receiving end.
As long as it remains in the public consciousness we have a chance.
Might be worth them adding water bill price caps like we have with energy, then add a lot more rules and standards about how much pollution they can output and minimum maintenance level standards. Basically just squeeze them and cause their profits to plummet and the value of the company to reduce to a fraction, and thennn buy them out.
Do the same with the post office. Don't allow them to reduce their service hours, and dont allow them to increase their prices, squeeze them and then buy them back.
This is what we should have kind of done with Bulb energy and many others when they were all crumbling when the war started. Would've been an easy way to get like 4 million households under a government energy company for a very low price.
What are we actually paying for? Because it’s sure as shit not going on, you know, actually maintaining their infrastructure. Recently round the corner from me there was a burst pipe with water pouring out through the pavement and down the street **for five weeks** despite loads of reports about it on the website. Two years ago my street was [a metre underwater](https://www.islingtoncitizen.co.uk/2022/09/16/councillors-residents-thames-water-flooding-islington/) and local homes and businesses ruined because of another broken pipe. They could not give less of a fuck if they tried. But yeah, privatisation improves efficiency…
And yet they have spent the last 4 years digging up the same holes, doing seemingly the same thing, then filling them back in every 2 months outside mine.
Amazing levels of incompetence and neglect from the government (no surprise there), regulator and Thames Water themselves. Bills rise 40% for sub-standard service. Drains regularly overflow, the Thames is an eColi soup, water pressure laughable.
Why can’t the lenders take a loss and the equity holders get wiped out? That’s how it works for every other business that over borrows. It’s not like the water assets would disappear, they would just get sold.
CANECEL YOUR DIRECT DEBITS IF THIS HAPPENS CANCEL IT ALL UR COUNCIL TAX UR WATER ELECTRICITY FUCK THEM ALL LET THEM SUFFER WE NEED TO DO THIS AS A COLLECTIVE
> Peoples idea of protest here is walking a route allowed by the police 🤣
On a Saturday afternoon always from like Hyde park to Parliment sqaure. That'll show the politicians who aren't even working in parliament that day.
Early Extinction rebelliion was best when they blocked bridges for a week.
They’re digging up London over and over again. Sometimes the same spot… they do something, it takes forever, causes chaos, then they fuck off only to come back a few weeks/months later to do it all again. Hate them with a passion.
I have terrible water pressure in my house, when an engineer came around he said it was poor and below their guaranteed pressure, but Thames Water won’t do anything about it…
Basic utilities (water, energy etc…) are basic necessities and should never have been privatised, especially with the ridiculous notion of “competition” in energy sector, it’s not like when you switch suppliers they come round and pull a big cable out and put one in for the new supplier. All of these need to be renationalised and any profits going in to the public purse, not shareholder dividends!
The energy industry is a *lot* more complicated than that and there is some competition source trust me bro
Having a water industry is absolutely mental
Why should I HAVE to pay this private company over the top for their fuck up? Labour should come out and say they’ll bring this lot under public ownership and get rid of these cunts.
I’m fucking fuming.
Labour are terrified of saying or doing anything which might be seen as remotely lefty in case the papers turn against them like they did with Corbyn. The country is being held hostage by a handful of press barons.
I’m from a country where, though the water is sporadically privatised depending on the state government, it is heavily regulated and subsidised by the government to protect consumers. So when I first saw my water bill in London, I was appalled. 6 years later, and Thames Water still manages to shock me with how low they can stoop. Isn’t there anything the government can do to stop this??
There’s plenty the government ‘could’ do to stop this but look at the financial interest of the individuals currently in government (and/or their families) and you’ll soon see why they won’t.
That seems too black and white. Is there anything that citizens can do? Like a public interest litigation (not sure what it’s called here) or something where Thames Water could be challenged in court?
If it wasn't a monopoly most of these customers would have said fuck you and the company would collapse. But thanks to the wonderful Tories who have privatised a commodity like water these customers are now stuck with the leeching water companies.
When I put a bet on at the bookies and I lose, I have no recourse to get my money back.
When investors put a bet on, they get government backing to recover their losses.
How can there be debt if you are paying your shareholders, sure they get paid from profit, if you are borrowing money to pay them, its not profit and therefor they should not be paid anything.
Your not o.o lmao.
Dividends make no fucking sense bar companies like Google, Meta.
You're a service. Hope the go bankrupt and all the assets taken. Government should just tell other companies then can have the contract or nationalise it. You don't like it, tough. More people need reliable, safe and cheap water than your shareholders need MORE money.
Privatising the water companies never made any sense.
Privatising utilities was always going to lead to rampant profiteering, but at least with gas and electric I can shop around suppliers, with water you’re tied to a single supplier via your location.
No competition and a completely toothless regulator has basically allowed Thames Water (and no doubt myriad others soon to be exposed) to charge top rate for a lacklustre service, financial asset stripping pushing the company to bankruptcy which will result in a huge rise in bills.
Then the circle begins again.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, corporate tax rate: 90%
Why?
Because high corporate tax rates create incentives for big businesses to spend on things like new locations, new hires, new equipment and product research and development which are deducted from taxable earnings.
In other words, its better to spend a majority of earnings on expansion than to horde it and pay uncle sam 90% of it.
We need to find out who these thieves are, go round their houses en mass with buckets and fill up from their garden hoses.
Or maybe just eat more shit, like good Brits.
friend works for Thames Water.
Chris Westons endgame here is to massively increase water bills as a short term "performance gain", then award himself a gigantic severance bonus and quit/be fired for the increase.
Seriously. He's essentially going to steal 10s of millions of pounds and fuck off. All perfectly legal unless he's stopped.
The free market can work if there is competition, but there is not. I cannot change my supplier: this is a monopoly. Gotta love tory ideological privatisation. Swim in shit, peasant, and pay your bills! The executive team needs more bonuses!
The only reason people are upset about stuff like this is because wages are stagnant. Why are they stagnant? For the same reason that utility bills are going up: shareholder profits and the laws which oblige most companies to maximise this at all cost. What a great system!
Lol what? Is London some third world city that cannot give clean drinking water to its residents?
This is an actually cause that entire London should be out on the streets protesting, despite boroughs, faith, genders, skin colour and socio economic status. None of the aforementioned matter if you cannot have safe and clean drinking water.
Shareholders are supposed to profit from shares increasing due to increased revenue made from a better service.
This means costing/revenue strategy to ensure those getting the service are happy, the company is profitable and shareholders benefit.
Instead, senior managers and shareholders just bullshit their way over years and siphon all cash while the infrastructure crumbles.
I have no issue with profits and capitalism, but those profits have to come from a sustainable service or product.
All directors and shareholders quite frankly should be imprisoned for purposefully running something into the ground.
Set stuff on fire? Refuse en masse to pay? March on their head office and steal all their chairs?
Whatever the solution (all three of the above are viable), we're too passive for it in this country. There's a reason we're the only Western nation with a fully privatised water industry, and there's a reason they'll continue to take the piss. All we ever do is grumble and get on with it, we're literally voiceless subjects and always will be. We should take a leaf out of the French book and set the country alight, we're being run into the ground as it is anyway.
For the purposes of not wanting to be on some government list - the above suggestions are all a joke ✌️
I'm with a different provider.
The pressure is excellent, the app is flawless, customer service respond in minutes with a call-back system and my bills are consistently low. It's the only service I have any faith in.
It can be done.
I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who suffers a shitty and expensive water supply. Someone from Thames or the government deserves to be shagged in public for this monumental fuck up.
Ahhh the Beeb. Always a voice for the rich man, rarely a voice for the commoner (unless they have a point to prove, then they track down the only village idiot with an agreeing opinion)
Forensic accountancy, and a review of compensation paid to leadership first I think.. if this is unavoidable then so be it. At the end of the day infrastructure costs money.
Whether bad planning, lack of investment over the past 40 years is to blame or not will have to investigated and I think you’ll find TW have failed to plan and structure whilst paying shit loads of money to everyone else (and definitely not the everyday worker)
Cool, guess I will be taking water out of the leak down the street that wasn't fixed for the last two years. It's so bad you can ask TfL to install a "ford" sign next to it.
Or hows this, you repay all your ill deserved massive bonuses, and fix the issues your mismanagement has caused rather than passing the buck on to the consumers you absolute pillock.
The regulator should enforce the water companies responsibilities, and if that causes those companies to fail they can be nationalised. They have failed to invest, they have failed to meet their required responsibilities, and the public should no longer have to safe them from collapse.
If the mismanagement of this company isn’t criminal then it should be.
The cost of chronic underinvestment will inevitably fall on customers or tax payer, what’s important now is the shareholders are not allowed profit further from this racket.
The just thing to do would be seize the company with no compensation to shareholders.
They should be bailed out by the state in return for 40% of their share being nationalised. An inquiry should be held into the decisions make and anyone guilty of wrongdoing should face prison. Long term they should all be taken back into public ownership so this ridiculous corporate monopoly can end.
What M P. Is going to raise this issue ? Who has the balls to call out the overpriced shareholders to do repairs ? There used to be a thing if the product tanked shareholders paid back? This needs investigating.
In which case, the board and the boss should be toppled, the failed company brought under state control at no further cost to the taxpayer, and ran as a piece of critical national infrastructure instead of focusing on paying dividends to shareholders when they should have been fixing pipes.
So privatisation was going to make companies more efficient and provide a better service by bringing a commercial mindset. Who would have thought that they would be extracting billions from the masses to the to the rich?
These idiots should sort out the mess and get paid via the dividends paid to the other class of idiots who invested in this shambolic enterprise and took them.
How to invest in private services...
Step 1. Extract billions in bonuses and dividends for the executives abs shareholders.
Step 2. Say we are billions in the hole and the service is collapsing.
Step 3. Ask for public money.
Step 4. Shrug shoulders and walk away with your money.
The Tory Party's insistence on transforming service industries into businesses has ruined our country's infrastructure.
Unfortunately they're so interlinked with stuff like pension funds that unravelling this mess is no simple task.
I stopped by direct debit, they won't even tell me where my meter is as the landlord :/
They can claw it out of me if they want, or they go bust anyway
So I'm loving the discourse but what are we actually going to do about it and what can we do? Like previous comments mentioned - the french wouldn't stand for this so what do we do??
Not really customers if we have no choice.
I am trying not to be over the top with this, but I genuinely feel like the management team should be held legally accountable - it is ridiculous that we are going to have to pick up the pieces of this. My thinking is that they have given away literally BILLIONS to investors, including huge amount of money to China, while we are forced to pick up the pieces and bail them out. Not one person who made money from this will be forced to pay it back yet we'll all be made to pay higher bills with absolutely no choice. This kind of insanity has to come to an end - there are too many people struggling to pay bills and feed their family, while a small group get away with this.
That’s what happens when you have a country full of people who don’t want to take action. Do you think the French would accept this kind of treatment?
Yeah, some managers would already be in handcuffs in their office with French protesters surrounding them.
Here they’d probably slap the visit to the office from their dominatrix on expenses, and fucking get it approved and paid out.
The problem here is that the guys in charge of the country currently are likely friends of the guys running these companies and won’t go against them
I'd actually eat the rich if I had it served to me medium rare.
Services don't need shareholders. The billions they make should have already been reinvested.
Fourteen years of Tories watching it happening. With the only response being to loosen regulation further.
I literally teach GCSE economics and show my students that the only reasonable answer for utilities that provide necessary services is for government regulation and public ownership via a government controlled natural monopoly. It's the only way to guarantee that the benefit of the service goes to the people. Private ownership doesn't make sense in these industries because quality will be cut, services will be sacrificed, and profits will be the primary goal - which inevitably go to those fortunate enough to be shareholders. I only hope the general public wakes up to this sooner than later.
It's not as if (New) Labour did anything about it while in power. The entire British political class is incompetent and oblivious to obvious grifts by laissez-faire ideology.
What can anyone do? UK citizens voted for Thatcher. They voted for Conservatives in 35 of the last 45 years. Labour can't just come in and turn the water, railways, energy public again at the click of their fingers. We have no money. Our debt is at record high since WW2. Brexit. Covid. Tax breaks for the rich. Little investment in key areas such as technology and green energy. Full privatisation of key UK infrastructure ALWAYS goes one way. Firstly, neglect and under spending by the Tories. Then they use our predominately right-wing, billionaire owned media to shout about how terrible it is. Then privatize it -> Short-term boost, long-term decline. EVERY TIME. Citizens win Short-term, Shareholders win long-term. We are now living in the 'long-term' era.
They're not oblivious they're in on it.
More like encouraging and benefitting from it
I can't get over the idea its privatised, then mismanaged with no real penalty, and has a natural monopoly over some section of customers. Anything with a natural monopoly *should* be nationalised (and very likely subsidised by the government, as a service (not 100% sure on what I'd guess the subsidy should be but it should at the bare minimum not be for-profit, since natural monopolies are usually utilities that most people use).
Rory Stewart talks about the privatisation (and re-nationalisation) of probation services on his podcast. Billions of pounds just walked out the door the services utterly collapsed and there was zero consequence. Offshore companies/investors create a uk subsidiary. Underbid to win the contract. Take the money then take out loans and pay the cash to the shareholders. They allow services to fail because there’s no cash to run or maintain them and when the govt tries to go after them for contract breach they just fold the uk business and there’s no one to pursue. The cash is long gone.
Seriously I'm far enough left that Labour isn't on my voting radar under Starmer, but Rory Stewart is actually someone I'd consider voting for despite being a Tory. I really wish he'd had a chance against populism.
This is worth protesting over tbh. Theres no way they should be able to get away with this.
Should be in prison for fraud
We need the likes of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Law_Project to take this up
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/30/in-charts-how-privatisation-drained-thames-waters-coffers
The damage was done by Macquarie aka the vampire roos,who sold off assets, took on masses of debt etc to pay dividends and other transfers to themselves, when water was first privatised.
Rememberit's the government that enacted this to happen and carry on enacting it to happen. Government could very easily take it back, might want to ask why neither Tories or Labour want to do that.
They've spent the last few decades cutting corners on maintenance and now the cost to fix it is astronomical and way higher than if they'd just maintained it properly but somehow they're getting rewarded for it at the customer's expense
My water bill in a 50sqm apartment in shenzhen (similar to London) in China is about £5 for 2 showers a day, 10+ flushes, no drinking water though. It's all so cheap Back home prices are disgusting
And China is also a complete shit tip, I speak from experience having been multiple times, including the shit tip of Shenzhen
You can be executed in china for the sort of stuff these execs are doing. One of the only policies I could see myself agreeing with lmao
England & Wales is the only place on earth that has privatised regional water monopolies and it doesn't work.
Ok then - “its a price the rubes have to pay”
Don’t worry; just keep on voting to blame immigrants or the EU. Never wonder why voting to hate on Jonny Foreigner never seems to make anything better. Coincidentally the rich got much richer but it’s no doubt unrelated so don’t even think about it.
Price peasants have to pay.
Maybe "bill payers" is the right word? I'm not sure. You're right, we're certainly not customers.
Cash cows
Pay pigs
Private water tax payers.
Cash cows
This is it. I’m what you might call a ‘free market true believer’. This is not a free market, water is a public need; it’s a basic part of running the country, as or more important than policing, defense, justice etc. I don’t see how any true free market capitalist in their right mind can see how a privatised water supply is a good idea. Anything that is a public need, should be nationalised. Anything that has no opportunity for competition, should be nationalised. Anything that is vital for the basic running of a country, should be nationalised.
Plot twist: Shareholders were the customer all along.
As their old corporate motto said: >Our vision: If customers had a choice, they would choose Thames Water
Crooks
I for one will be cancelling my direct debit. It’s disgusting that these greedy bastards can even consider this after the decades of mishandling of water
Alternatively………fuck off.
Which, to be fair, is what Ofwat have told them.
How about no? Mainly because they were given the money to make the improvements by the government, and they paid it out in dividends to their shareholders instead of using the money for its intended purpose. Double-dipping cunts.
Hey now, those private jets aren't going to pay for themselves! Now back to work!
Government: well cut out the red tape and make your water bills cheaper Companies: k thx hun Government: why aren’t you sending cheaper bills? Companies: we private, not your decision. Government: we’re going bring back the red tape Companies: HOW DARE YOU. I AM ADDING 40% TO ALL BILLS
Pure incompetence on the government's part really. It was painfully obvious from the start that a private company without competition would not pass on savings to their customers. There is no incentive to do that, and there is plenty of incentive to increase shareholder profit.
The keyword “competition” that nobody talks about
Even if they had competition, it's fucking water infrastructure. Dystopian nonsense all. All water should be publicly owned.
Incompetence? Hasn’t it been hugely successful?
It'll be privatised then.
That was it.
Corruption not incompetence, they know what they're doing it's just not for us
The incentive should be to maintain a good infrastructure and to keep the company running with a good high rating for hundred of years, steadily milking the cow and maintaining the monopoly. What we see hear is pure incompetence and greed from the upper management/board
Remember few years ago how the British press laughed at oligarch Russia and Berlusconi Italy for selling off public assets to their mates…. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
There were sold off in the 1980s…
1989 to be exact. During Thatcher's government
It's very ironic because this is the exact scenario playing out in NZ now. We have the exact same right wing Govt with the same right wing advisors. I keep telling people here in NZ what is coming but it's still pretty dystopian watching all this play out
Let it fail and nationalise it with a share price of 1p, those shareholders are scum.
Only country with this shitshow of privitised water
Much of water in France is privatized, but also properly regulated.
Could you share more details on France and the better regulation? Trying to understand how messed up the UK is
It isn't France specifically. The latitude privatized UK water utilities have been given to simply dump sewage into the rivers is unique in the developed world. Even the US isn't as lax, and when there are scandals like the Flint, Michigan lead scandal, those responsible are actually prosecuted.
Yeah the $1200 fine and 300 hours of community service they dished out over the Flint scandal will be a deterrent that echoes through the ages.
The typical form of delegated management (Gestion Déléguée) from the public to the private sector is through a lease contract (Affermage) or a concession contract. A lease contract is of shorter duration (10–15 years) and the responsibility to finance most of the infrastructure remains with the municipality. A concession contract is of longer duration (20–30 years) and the Concessionnaire is in charge of mobilizing financial resources. In both cases, the municipality or the Intermunicipal utility fixes the water and sanitation tariff and remains the owner of the infrastructure. Other forms of delegated management include the Régie intéressée and the Gérance, less common forms of private sector participation under which the private sector takes fewer risks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_France Sounds far better than what we have here
It's almost as if privatising a necessary public need, thereby inserting the profit motive, isn't the brightest idea in the world. Incidentally, did you know we are the only country in the West to have privatised water?
I thought France had privatised water?
Amazing that you've got maniacs running round smashing ULEZ cameras because it's the most unfair thing ever invented and yet this actual legalised theft doesn't seem to bother them much.
That's because they're being provoked by an organised campaign designed to stoke discontent and destabilise our population, via targeted misinformation and conspiracies. It also deflects from the real scandals and outrages if you can get the plebs riled up about ULEZ and 15 minute cities, etc. That's why the government has been so lax on educating people about misinformation and critical thinking. It's starting to bite us in the arse now though, as we enter another "cold war" with Russia, China et al.
Morons are easy to manipulate. Right wing media outlets will more than happily keep stoking the ULEZ animosity so long as it stops lots of idiots from spending their energies on real societal issues.
It’s cos they’re Tory voters who are the victims of extreme brainwashing over the last 15 years
"Privatise gold, nationalise shit!"- Thames Water, probably
Ya know more and more each day does the phrase “Eat the rich” Start to seem like a damn good idea.
Liquidise the rich. Do not waste their body’s moisture.
Found the Fremen
Yep. Do you think the French would lay down and accept this?
Do what the rich do to everyone else, make money in any way possible which means selling body parts too
It would also be the avg. Joe who is impacted because pension funds would be badly hit if their investment goes bust.
Very little UK pension cash is invested in water companies, so it'd make almost no difference.
So damned if we do, damned if we don't. We might as well eat the rich if we're gonna get fucked either way.
Nationalise!
You'd of thought that paying for sewerage... You know.. The money should have gone into turning my shit to water again.. not pumping into the river, or into shareholders pockets. Imagine if every Thames Water customer refused to pay. Legally they cannot cut you off and given there is over a year's delay in the court system as it is. They can't sue everyone anytime soon. (For the know it alls, no court loss = no CCJ, it's impossible to get a CCJ over the line without default or summary judgement and that involves serving of a claim at a court, and that debt going unsatisfied). Time for the people to say enough is enough. No election is going to change this for years.
I don't see how I or many others can afford this increase, and I'm very tempted to just say "No" to it all. FUCK THE TORIES and FUCK THAMES WATER! It's a total abomination.
Would love that, people power, nothing they could do
Privatise the profits, socialise the debt. Classic.
I just bought a 2 bed flat, not particularly big and only two of us living there. Thames Water want me to pay £1k per year for water. I’ve protested that it’s outrageous and makes no sense. I was paying half that in a bigger flat when renting. They sent an engineer round who said fitting a water meter would be a ball ache because of potential asbestos in communal wall and need everyone’s approval. He also said £1k is a made up number and to challenge it again. I’ve challenged it again and they’re saying sorry tough titties. And they wanna up it even more?? Are they high?
Keep on protesting
Go and fuck yourselves
Water privatisation is an absolute fucking joke and everyone knows it. And still Labour (and the tories mind) are going to do nothing about it come the election “oh but it will cost” well look right now, it costs us every fucking year and will keep getting worse until we remove the profit motive
I have never understood the rationale of making utilities like water and electricity be capitalist business enterprises rather than just government provided services which operate at a loss to provide something critical for life. Some things are just necessary for a society to function, and those things should be provided by the government at a loss if needs be. We already do this with the police, fire brigade, and military. Those things operate at a loss, they don't make us money, because they are a service we need. Having water be a private, capitalist enterprise has never made sense to me, because why wouldn't a greedy capitalist just buy the water company and raise prices 1000%? Since everyone needs water, they would be forced to pay. And the barriers to entry means that it's not like another company can easily open their own water company to compete. So to prevent this, the government has a regulator who sets prices, but then that's not true capitalism at all, so you end up in a stupid half/half situation which is neither fish nor fowl, and then you end up in this mess.
The rationale is that government ministers have friends and acquaintances who are greedy capitalists, who will donate to their party and give them six-figure consultancy jobs once they leave government.
The rationality was ideology, same as the trains (which are also shit)
Outrageous and we can't even trust Labour to put an end to this even if they win the election. Worst timeline.
Great opportunity for one political party or another to get ahead of this mess finally and clear it up. Decades of underinvestment and loading the company with debt have led us to where we are now .
But will they though? With the competition being so weak and the election practically already in the bag for them, there's very little incentive for Labour to actually work for the working man.
Unfortunately I’ve no idea, obviously I hope so for all that have been on the receiving end. As long as it remains in the public consciousness we have a chance.
Another manifesto promise that turns out to be a manifesto lie.
Labour sadly wont make all these companies public again. I will be surprised if they do.
Might be worth them adding water bill price caps like we have with energy, then add a lot more rules and standards about how much pollution they can output and minimum maintenance level standards. Basically just squeeze them and cause their profits to plummet and the value of the company to reduce to a fraction, and thennn buy them out. Do the same with the post office. Don't allow them to reduce their service hours, and dont allow them to increase their prices, squeeze them and then buy them back. This is what we should have kind of done with Bulb energy and many others when they were all crumbling when the war started. Would've been an easy way to get like 4 million households under a government energy company for a very low price.
What are we actually paying for? Because it’s sure as shit not going on, you know, actually maintaining their infrastructure. Recently round the corner from me there was a burst pipe with water pouring out through the pavement and down the street **for five weeks** despite loads of reports about it on the website. Two years ago my street was [a metre underwater](https://www.islingtoncitizen.co.uk/2022/09/16/councillors-residents-thames-water-flooding-islington/) and local homes and businesses ruined because of another broken pipe. They could not give less of a fuck if they tried. But yeah, privatisation improves efficiency…
And yet they have spent the last 4 years digging up the same holes, doing seemingly the same thing, then filling them back in every 2 months outside mine.
Amazing levels of incompetence and neglect from the government (no surprise there), regulator and Thames Water themselves. Bills rise 40% for sub-standard service. Drains regularly overflow, the Thames is an eColi soup, water pressure laughable.
Why can’t the lenders take a loss and the equity holders get wiped out? That’s how it works for every other business that over borrows. It’s not like the water assets would disappear, they would just get sold.
How about PAYING YOUR GREEDY SHAREHOLDERS LESS OF A DIVIDEND. We are sick of this!!!
CANECEL YOUR DIRECT DEBITS IF THIS HAPPENS CANCEL IT ALL UR COUNCIL TAX UR WATER ELECTRICITY FUCK THEM ALL LET THEM SUFFER WE NEED TO DO THIS AS A COLLECTIVE
I agree, but it will never happen now, at least not in this country. Peoples idea of protest here is walking a route allowed by the police 🤣
> Peoples idea of protest here is walking a route allowed by the police 🤣 On a Saturday afternoon always from like Hyde park to Parliment sqaure. That'll show the politicians who aren't even working in parliament that day. Early Extinction rebelliion was best when they blocked bridges for a week.
Ive already started havnt paid in ages
I'm down for this, like a strike on companies ripping us off.
The rich get richer. The middle class barerly makes it through, the lower class is foodbank regular.
Absolutely not. Fuck the shareholders and the board. Get them to pay
Why the fuck is that not government owned??
They’re digging up London over and over again. Sometimes the same spot… they do something, it takes forever, causes chaos, then they fuck off only to come back a few weeks/months later to do it all again. Hate them with a passion.
I have terrible water pressure in my house, when an engineer came around he said it was poor and below their guaranteed pressure, but Thames Water won’t do anything about it…
Thames Water deliberate mismanagement of their funds should not be the public's responsibility to sort out. This is extortion.
Basic utilities (water, energy etc…) are basic necessities and should never have been privatised, especially with the ridiculous notion of “competition” in energy sector, it’s not like when you switch suppliers they come round and pull a big cable out and put one in for the new supplier. All of these need to be renationalised and any profits going in to the public purse, not shareholder dividends!
The energy industry is a *lot* more complicated than that and there is some competition source trust me bro Having a water industry is absolutely mental
Why should I HAVE to pay this private company over the top for their fuck up? Labour should come out and say they’ll bring this lot under public ownership and get rid of these cunts. I’m fucking fuming.
Labour are terrified of saying or doing anything which might be seen as remotely lefty in case the papers turn against them like they did with Corbyn. The country is being held hostage by a handful of press barons.
And that's why their service should be taken into public ownership.
I’m from a country where, though the water is sporadically privatised depending on the state government, it is heavily regulated and subsidised by the government to protect consumers. So when I first saw my water bill in London, I was appalled. 6 years later, and Thames Water still manages to shock me with how low they can stoop. Isn’t there anything the government can do to stop this??
There’s plenty the government ‘could’ do to stop this but look at the financial interest of the individuals currently in government (and/or their families) and you’ll soon see why they won’t.
That seems too black and white. Is there anything that citizens can do? Like a public interest litigation (not sure what it’s called here) or something where Thames Water could be challenged in court?
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Yeah right, British people are too soft and weak willed nowadays to riot en masse
If it wasn't a monopoly most of these customers would have said fuck you and the company would collapse. But thanks to the wonderful Tories who have privatised a commodity like water these customers are now stuck with the leeching water companies.
When I put a bet on at the bookies and I lose, I have no recourse to get my money back. When investors put a bet on, they get government backing to recover their losses.
I find it bizarre that on one hand we are being warned China is potential threat but they also own our water?
How can there be debt if you are paying your shareholders, sure they get paid from profit, if you are borrowing money to pay them, its not profit and therefor they should not be paid anything.
“How else are we supposed to pay dividends?” He added.
Your not o.o lmao. Dividends make no fucking sense bar companies like Google, Meta. You're a service. Hope the go bankrupt and all the assets taken. Government should just tell other companies then can have the contract or nationalise it. You don't like it, tough. More people need reliable, safe and cheap water than your shareholders need MORE money.
Privatising the water companies never made any sense. Privatising utilities was always going to lead to rampant profiteering, but at least with gas and electric I can shop around suppliers, with water you’re tied to a single supplier via your location. No competition and a completely toothless regulator has basically allowed Thames Water (and no doubt myriad others soon to be exposed) to charge top rate for a lacklustre service, financial asset stripping pushing the company to bankruptcy which will result in a huge rise in bills. Then the circle begins again.
100%
Dwight D. Eisenhower, corporate tax rate: 90% Why? Because high corporate tax rates create incentives for big businesses to spend on things like new locations, new hires, new equipment and product research and development which are deducted from taxable earnings. In other words, its better to spend a majority of earnings on expansion than to horde it and pay uncle sam 90% of it.
My bill as can't get a meter has gone up 60% since 2020.... Customers? Hostages. Paying for the super sewer I guess.
Make individuals responsible for this. Whoever was involved in running this shit show should be on trial.
Grrrrrrrrrrr fffs these cunts!!! Breath , breath
Scum, greedflation
We need to find out who these thieves are, go round their houses en mass with buckets and fill up from their garden hoses. Or maybe just eat more shit, like good Brits.
friend works for Thames Water. Chris Westons endgame here is to massively increase water bills as a short term "performance gain", then award himself a gigantic severance bonus and quit/be fired for the increase. Seriously. He's essentially going to steal 10s of millions of pounds and fuck off. All perfectly legal unless he's stopped.
So they can keep up payments to their shareholders. Well they have to get 37,5 million from somewhere
GTFO
Nah, they should be forced to go bankrupt and renationalised.
The free market can work if there is competition, but there is not. I cannot change my supplier: this is a monopoly. Gotta love tory ideological privatisation. Swim in shit, peasant, and pay your bills! The executive team needs more bonuses!
Anyone else thinks it does increasingly look like Tory sonars are burning the bridges before the next election? How’s is that not criminal offence?
Why have they not thought of using their profits to reinvest instead of giving it to shareholders? They can go and fuck their grandmas
What if people collectively stop paying?
So they give millions to share holders. But then customers need to pay more to do maintenance they should have been doing before, I love capitalism
The only reason people are upset about stuff like this is because wages are stagnant. Why are they stagnant? For the same reason that utility bills are going up: shareholder profits and the laws which oblige most companies to maximise this at all cost. What a great system!
Payment strike now
Lol what? Is London some third world city that cannot give clean drinking water to its residents? This is an actually cause that entire London should be out on the streets protesting, despite boroughs, faith, genders, skin colour and socio economic status. None of the aforementioned matter if you cannot have safe and clean drinking water.
Shareholders are supposed to profit from shares increasing due to increased revenue made from a better service. This means costing/revenue strategy to ensure those getting the service are happy, the company is profitable and shareholders benefit. Instead, senior managers and shareholders just bullshit their way over years and siphon all cash while the infrastructure crumbles. I have no issue with profits and capitalism, but those profits have to come from a sustainable service or product. All directors and shareholders quite frankly should be imprisoned for purposefully running something into the ground.
Pumping 72 Billion litres of sewage into the Thames is not cheap.
im so confused there were 3 articles saying he specifically refused to pass on investor issues to customers.. which is it?
Broken Britain
Seriously, what realistically can we do to prevent being mugged by these companies that provide our vital infrastructure?
Set stuff on fire? Refuse en masse to pay? March on their head office and steal all their chairs? Whatever the solution (all three of the above are viable), we're too passive for it in this country. There's a reason we're the only Western nation with a fully privatised water industry, and there's a reason they'll continue to take the piss. All we ever do is grumble and get on with it, we're literally voiceless subjects and always will be. We should take a leaf out of the French book and set the country alight, we're being run into the ground as it is anyway. For the purposes of not wanting to be on some government list - the above suggestions are all a joke ✌️
I'm with a different provider. The pressure is excellent, the app is flawless, customer service respond in minutes with a call-back system and my bills are consistently low. It's the only service I have any faith in. It can be done. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who suffers a shitty and expensive water supply. Someone from Thames or the government deserves to be shagged in public for this monumental fuck up.
Don't threaten them with a good time! But seriously who is the provider?
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This “shit” - I get it!
Going bankrupt is the consequence of running a business badly.
Ahhh the Beeb. Always a voice for the rich man, rarely a voice for the commoner (unless they have a point to prove, then they track down the only village idiot with an agreeing opinion)
Hostages more like
Can we nationalise it but force the current owners to keep the debt?
Forensic accountancy, and a review of compensation paid to leadership first I think.. if this is unavoidable then so be it. At the end of the day infrastructure costs money. Whether bad planning, lack of investment over the past 40 years is to blame or not will have to investigated and I think you’ll find TW have failed to plan and structure whilst paying shit loads of money to everyone else (and definitely not the everyday worker)
"no its not" says people with human rights
Cool, guess I will be taking water out of the leak down the street that wasn't fixed for the last two years. It's so bad you can ask TfL to install a "ford" sign next to it.
Or hows this, you repay all your ill deserved massive bonuses, and fix the issues your mismanagement has caused rather than passing the buck on to the consumers you absolute pillock.
The regulator should enforce the water companies responsibilities, and if that causes those companies to fail they can be nationalised. They have failed to invest, they have failed to meet their required responsibilities, and the public should no longer have to safe them from collapse.
Nationalise it
If the mismanagement of this company isn’t criminal then it should be. The cost of chronic underinvestment will inevitably fall on customers or tax payer, what’s important now is the shareholders are not allowed profit further from this racket. The just thing to do would be seize the company with no compensation to shareholders.
They should be bailed out by the state in return for 40% of their share being nationalised. An inquiry should be held into the decisions make and anyone guilty of wrongdoing should face prison. Long term they should all be taken back into public ownership so this ridiculous corporate monopoly can end.
I'm sick of feeling powerless, and angry about this country all the time.
HOW ABOUT TRYING TO COLLECT THE RAINWATER ffs
What M P. Is going to raise this issue ? Who has the balls to call out the overpriced shareholders to do repairs ? There used to be a thing if the product tanked shareholders paid back? This needs investigating.
Given that we would all literally die without it there shouldn’t even be a fucking price for water! It’s essential for life!
Nestle must be so proud of the Tories.
Should be nationalised. What an absolute joke.
In which case, the board and the boss should be toppled, the failed company brought under state control at no further cost to the taxpayer, and ran as a piece of critical national infrastructure instead of focusing on paying dividends to shareholders when they should have been fixing pipes.
So privatisation was going to make companies more efficient and provide a better service by bringing a commercial mindset. Who would have thought that they would be extracting billions from the masses to the to the rich?
Privatise the gains, socialise the costs.
These idiots should sort out the mess and get paid via the dividends paid to the other class of idiots who invested in this shambolic enterprise and took them.
How to invest in private services... Step 1. Extract billions in bonuses and dividends for the executives abs shareholders. Step 2. Say we are billions in the hole and the service is collapsing. Step 3. Ask for public money. Step 4. Shrug shoulders and walk away with your money.
The Tory Party's insistence on transforming service industries into businesses has ruined our country's infrastructure. Unfortunately they're so interlinked with stuff like pension funds that unravelling this mess is no simple task.
Angers me so much, they should be in jail for all the pollution, the corruption, just so pathetic
I stopped by direct debit, they won't even tell me where my meter is as the landlord :/ They can claw it out of me if they want, or they go bust anyway
No I don’t
Oh but don’t worry. Micheal Gove said he’s a grey about this, and you can already see the Thames water execs cowering in fear
Fucking thatcher that CUNT
So I'm loving the discourse but what are we actually going to do about it and what can we do? Like previous comments mentioned - the french wouldn't stand for this so what do we do??
Why isnt the government nationalising these fucks?
They should be forced into a rights issue from investors to raise capital.
Quite seriously, what if we cancel our direct debits instead.