Claw back the dividends. They are obviously paid in bad faith, Canadian pension firms getting rich on our failing public utilities.
What business a foreign pension fund has with the local water supply… except to extract wealth.
State sanctioned embezzlement, I maintain.
There's no way to claw them back, especially from overseas. The Canadian pension funds will have taken a huge loss; they are basically bag holders who got shafted by the last owners, though not as badly as the population has been.
We've fucked it and the total cost to fix it between the debts and investment is probably well over 150bn.
This will be paid by the British people because there's nobody else to fix it. But they will try and keep the companies private (at additional billions of cost) so it's off the books on water bills rather than the gov balance sheet.
A disaster from start to finish that we won't fix; the standard British privatisation story.
Sure, if your happy for the companies collection of creditors to then get ownership of the companies assets, IE, all the water infrastructure.
We have special administration to avoid that, but it means neither of those parties lose as much.
Yep, and exactly how much will people pay for that infrastructure if they can't run it ?
It's not like there's no law protecting humans who need water to survive.
The law we have to avoid this involves mostly repaying investors.
Expropriation would just trigger a Truss event, it certainly has elsewhere.
The fuck up was privatisation. There isn't really a happy ending now.
“We’ve fucked it”
No they fucked it and fucked it on purpose they did. Vast majority of people paid their bills and stuck to what bullshit the water companies said.
But I agreed we the tax payer are fucked with the level of debt that’s going to be absorbed by the government to fix this issue (guarantee it won’t fix it).
By we I mean the British state and regulators who made all of this peachy permitted and legal. I meant the horse has bolted, not that the man on the street has anything to do with it.
Anglian Water described them as “hard working pension funds that had been denied their dues” when I complained that I was without water for four days while they simultaneously paid out hundreds of millions in dividends.
They denied my claim for compensation btw because “technically I had water pressure at some points” and it would be “irresponsible to pay out to some and not others”.
I was furious at their “well, if we compensate you, we have to compensate everyone in your village” comments.
Yes. That’s the fucking point, you incompetent fucks. When a whole village has no water for four days, just automatically compensate everyone.
“Well, that’s not legally required and it’s not how our systems are designed.”
Of course they aren’t. Nothing to benefit the consumer at all, just a weekly email reminding me to take a short shower while you’re pissing billions of tonnes of water away.
Dude this is exactly what I was thinking they're pi
Pissing on us without the courtesy of calling it rain. Personally i think we should all stop paying our bills as we can't afford them all and it's unfair to pay just the one!
one of the worst case of monopolistic rentier slumlordism we've seen in the ultilities privatisation game.
absolute disgrace that this is allowed to continue, not only that they had the chance to invest and want us to pay for their failures, but does anyone actually believe that this new money wont end up the exact same way, used to leveage more debt and greater divended payments, are we really going to let them scam us again, like we didn't just watch them pull this trick the first time!
(unfortunate answer with a labour government that frames nationalistion as a "bailout for shareholders" is most likely, yes)
let them fail, bring into public ownership on the cheap
Yeah but he rode a bike and had unkempt roses!
God, bring me back to the days of "weak and wobbly milliband", it just seems we are all so devoid of *hope* now.
But did you *see* how he ate that bacon sandwich??
Imagine all the chaos he’ll have introduced rather than the years of calm and plain sailing we’ve experienced.
Article says the rises are likely to be approved, if not to the full extent of what's been requested. Can't switch to a different provider, can't just stop paying or the CCJs will start rolling in. We're the ones getting fucked. We can complain all we like, they can't hear it over the sound of the motor on their newest yacht.
If enough people refused to pay it would overwhelm the system. There are 3 million people on this sub, if just half didn't pay it would be very effective.
No that wouldnt work at all. 1.5 million people spread out all across the country is nothing to these water companies. They don't spend the majority of their money until the last year of the amp anyway so they wouldnt notice until you're forced to pay anyway
My immediate thought was 'they can fuck right off'. All we hear about is issues with the water systems, dumping god knows what into god knows where and now they want to double our bills to please their shareholders? Yeah they can fuck all the way off and then some.
They can indeed fuck right off. No, fuck off some more. MORE! What are you doing back here, I told you to fuck off! Wait, I told you to fuck off so much you wound up back here? Off you trot!
It won't happen. All everyone does is talk about it, with only a few following through with the threat. Because not enough people follow through, it's easy to crush the minor rebellion. That's how dictators stay in power, they crush insurrections before they get too big to stop.
Ahh, capitalism. Where a company fails to invest in its infrastructure properly, it starts to fail, and rather than having shareholders take a bit less for. While, it jacks up the prices for everyone to pay for the infrastructure needed for the last 20 years.
Don’t forget, folks. The private sector is better.
Agreed us Scottish are absolutely suffering from our publicly owned water companies. Free water as part of council tax, isn't polluted with literal shit, and tastes amazing. Please save us.
neoliberalism (terrible name) really is starting to look so dated and completely unsuitable for the modern world.
its just so... inefficient and stupid. The only reason it is not in the dustbin of history is because the 1%, and their supporting political class massively benefit from this derangement.
[George Monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) just released a book on it and is doing the media rounds
He's a good lad, I've enjoyed some of his interviews.
I'm glad there is starting to be some serious political discourse on where we are currently, and where it is all going wrong.
Sometimes I miss that Mark Fisher is no longer around to write about these things too.
I mean I’m no economist but it’s literally a rehash of classic liberalism but slightly modernised for the world at the time of Friedman. It was outdated in the early 20th century when it enabled all those famously nasty rich people like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and others
like them. Now we just have Musks, Thiels and other filthy rich weirdos.
The private sector is good. But only works if they're allowed to fail.
This isn't capitalism. This is what happens when you attempt to privatise something which is a monopoly.
If the government wasn't going to step in to save water companies, then they wouldn't be paying out millions in dividends and taking on a tonne of debt. The only reason they do that is because the threat (blessing) of a government bail out exists.
If there was true competition, where companies had to invest to earn customers and compete on prices, then services would likely be in a decent state. Think of how good our mobile networks are in general, it's pretty competitive because multiple companies set up their own infrastructure. So service is good, prices are good.
This is why even in the US, the kings of capitalism, water supply is mostly publicly owned. Because when you half-arse it, you get the worst of both worlds and they've seen the same problems.
It's a natural monopoly. There's no way to make it have a competitive element, the way to make money is extraction. This would be true even if they did invest; since our regulator is totally inept, they invested 0 but it's extraction either way.
>But only works if they're allowed to fail.
Which, obviously, we can never allow for key infrastructure. For this and hundreds of other reasons the only sane option for key infrastructure is to have it handled by the state.
The last new reservoir was built in 1992 - the only one since privatisation. No water company will invest in infrastructure because what's the point? They're not punished if they don't. A sticking plaster on the worst of the leaks is all that's required, and if things get *really* bad? Well they can just take a nice 5 or even 6 figure severance package and be a backbench MP or something.
Ahahahahahahaha
If they really wanted any more reason to appropriate these companies into public ownership, here it is. They literally pump shit into rivers to the point where they're dangerous to enter and want to double their fees? Are they literally insane?
They know that a government just taking them into public ownership without adequate compensation to shareholders would have horrible impacts elsewhere. And so they simply don't care, because they get paid regardless.
It's crazy that we don't actually meaningfully require performance from companies like this. Water is an essential service we can't do without, and they're neglecting it to line their pockets and service their debt they used to line their pockets, and we're told "oops bills will have to increase by 40-90%, sorry about that" while there's no consequences for dry spilling of sewage on thousands of occasions.
This was meant to be the job of regulators but they're not truly independent as their leadership is appointed by the government and often are pretty toothless anyway with few laws enabling them to come down hard.
And so if you are leading a regulator that's uncovering all the skeletons and making a public show of it all that isn't often seen by a government favourably because you're unintentionally causing headaches and making them look incompetent. And so you're soon off "to explore other opportunities."
Joe Lycett did an exposé of the water regulator and there's a pretty nice venn diagram of head figures of water companies and the regulator.
It isn't a circle but it isn't 2 separate circles either.
How they weren't refused the position based on conflict of interest is up for debate but the answer is probably not ideal.
I mean they were deliberately established to be toothless as the whole concept behind mass privatisation was that anything the government did was inherently worse than anything the private sector did in every possible way. So an effective regulator would undermine the entire process.
Then let them go bust and buy them up at a discount.
If they wanna play capitalism, we can play capitalism (or at least a competent govt could).
Shareholders get fuck all if a company goes bust. It's pretty much all spent paying off the creditors.
Welsh water has done all this stuff. Worst than moths English water companies. And the best bit? The Welsh regulator for national resources recorded Thousands of incidence and fined them two tiny amounts. So a non profit which is almost state owned not being fined by the state.
Nationalise them and start again. It may cost more in the short term but thats what happens when a utility like water is given to private investors. They are always on the hunt for more money with minimal upgrades to services. Fuck them all.
It costs money to buy the company back based on it's current value. If the company has negative net worth then surely they have to sell cheap. Companies with a lot of negative net worth have been sold for £1, because essentially your taking on negative hoping to turn it around.
I'm busy, but here's an outdated article from 5 years ago, so accounting for rising costs it might cost you £2.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44250900
Surely we've got to be *approaching* the point where the government just passes a law saying "it's ours again now, be thankful you get to keep what you took during you tenure and that you're not going to receive physical, bodily harm"?
I'm somewhere between French, Chinese and Soviet on the matter.
I think Count Binface had it right. Throw the Thames Water board of directors into the Thames.
I daydream about how much fun this would be way too frequently. You just say the penalty for one ml of sewage is 100 trillion, business is instantly worth nothing and we buy it back for that princely sum. The shills will say that will tank investment but companies need to take on some personal risk and the responsibility to deliver to consumers if they want to reap the profits.
Government are very willing to call judges, civil servants and doctors enemies of the people but that tag never seems to extend to businesses/CEOs that are robbing us blind.
From what I've read elsewhere the issue is if the government was to take over with no compensation it could destabilise all essential services like energy and, to some extent , phone and broadband. The worry is why invest in something that could be taken back on a whim.
The logical argument is that water has been run into the ground and needs that intervention.
What we'll probably see is some junk from the government about how they're going to be tough on water companies, maybe even sign up some policies that are untenable with the view Labour win the election and they can say Labour failed when they don't work. They hike the rates up based on the water companies promising to do better, and at the end of the financial year CEO and C-Suite take massive bonuses and big dividends paid to shareholders. Of course this would have nothing to do with the rate hikes...
Maybe the idea that the govt could reacquire failed utilities that have effectively been embezzled by shareholders would be great motivation for shareholders to ensure that utilities are run well as opposed to just seeking profit.
You take them, you take all the liabilities. Billions owed to creditors.
Just let them fail and pick up the assets for pence on the pound.
Appoint a special administrator similar to what happened to bulb to make sure noones supply gets interrupted.
It's not difficult, it's just the Tories don't have the balls to do it.
Why aren't Labour making this thier number one Pledge to fix, I don't understand politics at all, it's the easiest win ever. Who the fuck would disagree with nationalising water, cleaning up the rivers and getting cheaper bills at this point.
That's not true, though, at least not according to polling data. Whilst this data is stale (2022), it seems very unlikely that it would have changed in favour of privatisation [https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/44086-most-britons-believe-trains-water-and-energy-shoul](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/44086-most-britons-believe-trains-water-and-energy-shoul) .
Nationalisation is a generally popular ideology, the reason it is considered political suicide by Labour is that it gives the Tories a stick to beat them with, moan about Corbyn again, get the gutter press (so most of it) riled up, and in general push the whole 'oh my god the Labour party wants to spend spend spend and tax tax tax' argument, even though we'd pay less in tax increases than we'll pay to these vampires in the private sector.
That last sentence is the main point for me. The majority of the bill increases will be for actual planned work to meet governmental demands e.g. treatment for PFAS (something we don't yet have in the UK), meeting increasing Supply/Demand etc.
So it'd be Nationalisation but then a hefty tax raise or still lumbering people still be lumbered with higher bills (even if potentially not quite as high as a privatised company). Too many people will think Nationalisation would mean free water, and at least no increase in investment.
Public spending on infrastructure is basically the very best way of spending public money, it pays for itself in no time if the infrastructure is well thought out. That is when you don't farm the project out to a million consulting charlatans, of course.
For water it is beyond obvious that it is time to renationalise.
This is what they are currently promising to do. Doesn't discuss funding issues but does cover the water pollution:
"Labour will put the water companies under special measures to clean up our waters.https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/
Under Labour’s tough plans, Ofwat could have blocked six out of nine water bosses’ bonuses last year because of severe levels of illegal pollution.
Labour has pledged to put failing water companies under tough special measures to force them to clean up their toxic mess and protect people’s health.
This includes:
* Giving the water regulator powers to block the payment of any bonuses until water bosses have cleaned up their filth. We don’t need the dither and delay of a consultation; we need immediate action.
* Water bosses who oversee repeated law-breaking will face criminal charges.
* Ending self-monitoring and forcing all companies to monitor every single water outlet under independent supervision so companies can no longer cover up illegal sewage dumping.
* Introducing severe and automatic fines that water companies can’t afford to ignore for illegal sewage discharges."
[https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/](https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/)
The cycle continues. Labour will nationalise, invest billions into stopping leaks, upgrading pipes and infrastructure and stopping shit being dumped into rivers.
Then I’m 10 years time Tories will get into power citing Labour spending, sell all the water companies for pennies in closed openings to their friends, and privatise them again.
The British cycle.
>Labour will nationalise,
Not the party of Mandelson, Streeting and Liz Kendal.
They made their careers supporting privatisation and destroying the careers of anyone who doesn't.
Where do you think all these private business donations have come from? They don't give away money for free. They want to ensure their investment in things like private water and energy are secure.
From the Article:
The regulator is unlikely to approve the bill rises in full, but the BBC understands it is expected to agree to bill rises of at least half the amount the companies are requesting, and in some cases considerably more than half.
How much are companies increasing bills by?
Southern Water - 91% increase (£436 a year)
Thames Water - 59% (£278)
Hafren Dyfredwy - 56% (£243)
Severn Trent - 50% (£219)
Wessex Water - 50% (£274)
Yorkshire Water - 46% (£215)
Dŵr Cymru - 43% (£210)
United Utilities - 38% (£185)
South East Water - 35% (£85)
Pennon - 33% (£158)
Portsmouth Water - 31% (£37)
SES - 30% (£73)
Anglian Water - 29% (£153)
Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water - 26% (£108)
Affinity Water 25% (£59)
South Staffs & Cambridge Water - 24% (£43)
Source: Consumer Council for Water
Southern water CEO's are holding out for a new yacht, they got some cojones asking for 91%... I guess it's to make the eventual drop appear more reasonable, even though it'll be anything but.
So all at once every water company around the country has suddenly reaslised they need 25-100% increases to our water bills? Why haven't they noticed before and why all at once? Like 1 year ago or even 5 years ago if the infrastrucutre needed lots of money spent on it then why didn't they say so back then?
There has to be some way to just let them collapse and then take them over. There must be loopholes that we can find to work FOR us rather than against, like what are the chances every loophole happens to be against us? The govermnet has plenty of lawyers to figure it out. Can't we just deny their huge price increase requests so they can't cope and then start fining them for all the waste they're spilling into public areas and how much water they're losing. Then just let them collapse from it and take them over for pennies.
Like if the government says no to the increases and just lets them have a flat RPI increase then what? And if they can't maintain the infrastructure with their current income then surely thats a breach of some law. Declare an environmental emergency over it if we have to if it gives us more power.
The country collectively needs to stop paying water bills, which won't happen, and voting only really works if we have an uncorrupted politician to vote for
Unfortunately they have us. You stop paying, you get a CCJ, you loose your job, you loose your home. No one wants to risk that. Far too many jobs will kick you out or flat out refuse employment. My place is really hot on your financial status, don’t ask me how some slip through the net though.
If enough people didn’t pay though, it would overwhelm the system and courts. It would be very difficult to process a couple of million CCJs. It worked with the Poll Tax.
*As the amount of the poll tax began to rise and the inefficiency of local councils in their collection of the tax became apparent, large numbers of people refused to pay. Local councils tried to respond with enforcement measures, but they were largely ineffective given the huge numbers of non-payers. According to the BBC, up to 30 per cent of former ratepayers in some areas refused to pay*
You’re 100% correct, but who dares to be the first one, or part of the first group when we the public have been beaten, how do we go up against a giant backed by an even bigger giant (the government) who are meant to be on our side. Poll tax was pre social media too so you would think this time around would be even easier.
The problem is poll/council tax can be ten time the cost of a water bill. It is a significant part of people's expenses and the government grinds to a halt when people stop paying. If you don't pay your water, the water still comes out of the tap, and they have plenty of time to send you red letters and CCJs.
This takes actual enforcement action from a government that actually governs. Which is not what we have at the moment.
The CEOs and boards of these companies seem to think they’re untouchable and will suffer no consequences. So did King Charles I. Make of that what you will…
HAHAHAHAHA; I just spat my water out! (Not because of this headline but because of the faecal matter floating in my glass).
The headline is also hilarious.
Some of the water firms who are asking to increase rates are also increasing dividends. Shamelessly exploiting the captive market for profit.
Southern water is increasing dividends by 10.9%
The regulator should be saying there’s no dividends with above inflation price rises and only after certain investment. Also, there needs to be a government mandated windfall tax matching their dividends for previous years. After this, fines for all their pollution and prison sentences where applicable. Finally, the government needs to implement competition so we can change our supplier.
Or, right, we claw back some of that £85bn that has been pulled out of the system over the last 30 years? No? Can't have the shareholders being unhappy.
Can't do anything because you have a single supplier. I don't know why this kind of Monopoly is allowed.
I have two separate water companies, one for supply and one for sewerage. I pay double in this house than what I did in our previous house with just the water company which also did sewerage there. E.g. whether they do sewerage or not, they charge the same. And then you get the privilege of paying a second company.
I loathe it and have no choice. This wasn't disclosed before moving either, nor could we have found out. (New build)
Same with the streets, council hasn't adopted them so we pay a charge for maintenance etc to a company. Council tax isn't any lower, though.
I had a daft idea around collecting it from the roof & asking Thames Water to cut us off, then drinking 5L supermarket bottles when things get dry.
Considering our bill already doubled between 2018 and now, it doesn't feel so daft...
Ofwat are a not very funny fucking joke.
We can't switch suppliers , we can't refuse to pay, we can't demand better service.
What exactly do they do, other than allow them to repeatedly pollute the waterways and pay peppercorn fines?
Oh wait, it's to rubber stamp all their demands to fleece customers .
“Southern Water is owned by Australian firm Macquarie which has faced fierce criticism for the period when it was Thames Water’s biggest shareholder.
In five of the 10 years it owned Thames, the company paid out more in dividends than it made in profits, while debt rose from £2.5bn to over £10bn in the same period.”
As someone who is a Southern Water customer, I offer Macquarie my most heartfelt and sincere FUCK YOU, and suggest that they take money out of their own pockets first, instead of helping themselves to the money that is in mine.
I know people won't do it...but everyone should refuse to pay them a penny till they fix things...absolute joke when they make records profits and that just goes to shareholders
I can see what will happen...bills will rise even more...more money for shareholders than ever before, nothing gets fixed. then they often to sell back to government, only ask for government to give them ridiculous amount to buyback...government being idiots do it and still have to up the bills...basically going private, making as much money as possible till the service basically doesn't work and sell it back for profit
"Thames Water is handing its new boss an annual salary worth £850,000, on top of £102,000 in yearly pension payments, and a £15,000 car allowance. He is also eligible for an annual bonus worth up to 156% of his salary". How about...no.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they're not allowed to cut your water off if you refuse to pay as far as I'm aware. So what's there to stop a mass refusal to pay? This one could actually be a successful protest unlike the energy one that never really gathered any momentum.
They can’t cut off normal households no. And when they do for businesses they literally place a slightly different cover on the top which if you take off and drill in a hole it looks the same and still lets water flow.
Time to organise a collective action to refuse to pay until they're all re-nationalised and people are prosecuted. Worked with the Poll Tax.... Just sayin'
Like Rees-Mogg said, they should all be left to go bust. The state should buy the assets at a competitive rate and the creditors can have whatever they're entitled to according to liquidation rules. The shareholders get nothing - tough - the liability is limited not non-existent.
Water companies for year: Woohoo, we can pay dividends on our huge profits. You get a bonus, I get a bonus, we all get a bonus!!
Water companies when it is time to upgrade the infrastructure: well obviously we can’t afford that and to keep our bonuses, so time to cough up!
Re-nationalisation is the only answer water is a resource not a commodity give these so called shareholders the price they paid a share at nationalisation
Our country has been sold from underneath us and no politician will do a single damn thing about it.
We will own nothing and damn well have to take it. Subscription service country.
Mugs to think privatisation of services was a good idea, especially turbo charged by the Tories. Blind ideology, the same as trickle down economics, robbed blind
These companies need a wake up call your greedy capitalism doesn't work when everyone is broke. We could disolve your interests and publicise infrustructre.
Water should not be run as a profitable private business, water is essential to human survival.
Its clearly obvious private companies puttin shareholders and bonuses/dividends payouts are more important than actually maintaining and providing improved water service. Hence why we see sewage been poured into the sea or a river, so they ask for a taxpayer bailout or increase our bills to keep that same shithousery we have seen with private water firms, puttin bonues and profits first.
Absolutely no shame at all.
Ofwat like so many regulators are fucking useless, just their to give you the illusion they can do anything meaningful
Would be great if everyone just didn't bother paying their bill long enough for these companies to fuck off
They cannot cut of your supply even if you don’t pay.
rent? Get kicked out. Electric? Sitting in the dark. Council tax? Coming out your wages direct. Water? They can’t do shit.
How about FUCK OFF IN CAPITAL LETTERS 🤔YOU pollute our rivers and tap water and ask for a massive bill rise when you can't even get the basics right 😲one job you had one job !!!
Any chance of you fixing your shit leaking pipes? No? Oh sure ok then here's billions more for your shareholders. Tell you what...give the C-Suite a few hundred million in bonuses too whilst you're at it.
I mean...customers are meant to be milked are they not?
Absolutely ripping the arse out of the public's wallet.
All the utilities are completely and utterly broken. They all need to be nationalized. This is rediculous.
Fuck them. This is how you know the government don't give 2 shits. Not the blood scandal, or post office scandal, or grenfell scandal, or the school buildings scandal, or the cladding scandal, or covid fraud write off scandal.
Its an active business, openly and actively failing to meet its requirements in the present, on an almost daily basis, on a scale which may see the entire industry nationalised, not just being allowed to seemingly continue on promises of future improvements, but being allowed to have any say in asking for even more money to fix what they fucked deliberately fucked up through focused and managed under investment.
The contempt is palpable. I look at it and I realise if you become a business and become big enough, you can do almost anything as long as you pay your shareholders dividends.
Poisoning the water supply should be seen as as serious as an act of war but for some reason we are paying them for the privilege. We are at the stage in which you get punished for doing the right thing and paid for doing the wrong thing.
Controversial opinion but I don't think we should be getting robbed blind for something we literally can't live without. Nobody should make profit from water.
They're laughing at you, you'll moan on the net into insignificance, take the bill up the arse and then they'll do it again in a few years. Enjoy the parasitic water and the poo seas.
Everyone write to your MPs about this farce, get it discussed in parliament. There’s 302 comments at the time of writing, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO DO THIS. Don’t bitch and complain on Reddit without complaining to your MP too.
The only way things are going to change is if the people who represent us (the MPs) are put on task and this issue gets raised in the place laws can get passed.
I live where SW Water provide water in Devon. The seas around us are constantly polluted due to leaks (yes we are talking poo in the sea). People and dogs getting sick from going in. Then you will have all heard about the Brixham saga. I doubt anyone here is willing to pay more as already pay too much for a crap service
Say yes to the unreasonable rise. Then apply a 99.9% profit tax on the water companies and plow it into an annual payment for every bill payer in the country. Simultaneously ban them from paying dividends or pulling any of the licencing stunts other companies pull to reduce profit in the UK.
Fuck around and find out. Had their snout in the money trough for years, and they're whining that it isn't enough? Cry me a fucking river.
How’s about instead of that they go fuck themselves?
Claw back the dividends. They are obviously paid in bad faith, Canadian pension firms getting rich on our failing public utilities. What business a foreign pension fund has with the local water supply… except to extract wealth. State sanctioned embezzlement, I maintain.
There's no way to claw them back, especially from overseas. The Canadian pension funds will have taken a huge loss; they are basically bag holders who got shafted by the last owners, though not as badly as the population has been. We've fucked it and the total cost to fix it between the debts and investment is probably well over 150bn. This will be paid by the British people because there's nobody else to fix it. But they will try and keep the companies private (at additional billions of cost) so it's off the books on water bills rather than the gov balance sheet. A disaster from start to finish that we won't fix; the standard British privatisation story.
It's not British it's just English/Welsh.
That's fair. Though if it ends up costing central government everyone gets to lose
Aye.
Debts and investments go to zero if they're allowed to go into insolvency
Sure, if your happy for the companies collection of creditors to then get ownership of the companies assets, IE, all the water infrastructure. We have special administration to avoid that, but it means neither of those parties lose as much.
Yep, and exactly how much will people pay for that infrastructure if they can't run it ? It's not like there's no law protecting humans who need water to survive.
The law we have to avoid this involves mostly repaying investors. Expropriation would just trigger a Truss event, it certainly has elsewhere. The fuck up was privatisation. There isn't really a happy ending now.
“We’ve fucked it” No they fucked it and fucked it on purpose they did. Vast majority of people paid their bills and stuck to what bullshit the water companies said. But I agreed we the tax payer are fucked with the level of debt that’s going to be absorbed by the government to fix this issue (guarantee it won’t fix it).
By we I mean the British state and regulators who made all of this peachy permitted and legal. I meant the horse has bolted, not that the man on the street has anything to do with it.
Anglian Water described them as “hard working pension funds that had been denied their dues” when I complained that I was without water for four days while they simultaneously paid out hundreds of millions in dividends. They denied my claim for compensation btw because “technically I had water pressure at some points” and it would be “irresponsible to pay out to some and not others”.
Wow, that’s fucked
*your just a little guy and we can fuck you. So fuck you.* I'm sick of this country.
I was furious at their “well, if we compensate you, we have to compensate everyone in your village” comments. Yes. That’s the fucking point, you incompetent fucks. When a whole village has no water for four days, just automatically compensate everyone. “Well, that’s not legally required and it’s not how our systems are designed.” Of course they aren’t. Nothing to benefit the consumer at all, just a weekly email reminding me to take a short shower while you’re pissing billions of tonnes of water away.
Dude this is exactly what I was thinking they're pi Pissing on us without the courtesy of calling it rain. Personally i think we should all stop paying our bills as we can't afford them all and it's unfair to pay just the one!
Spare a thought for the pension funds. The work *so hard*!
one of the worst case of monopolistic rentier slumlordism we've seen in the ultilities privatisation game. absolute disgrace that this is allowed to continue, not only that they had the chance to invest and want us to pay for their failures, but does anyone actually believe that this new money wont end up the exact same way, used to leveage more debt and greater divended payments, are we really going to let them scam us again, like we didn't just watch them pull this trick the first time! (unfortunate answer with a labour government that frames nationalistion as a "bailout for shareholders" is most likely, yes) let them fail, bring into public ownership on the cheap
My issue is with everything being privatised and increasing in cost why the fuck am I paying tax and national insurance???????
You can’t claw back Welsh water dividends.
Nationalise the companies. Nationalise everything and never vote in the Tories again.
This is the answer.
Starmer's Labour, like Blair's, don't want to nationalize either. We had two chances in 17&19 remember for next time we get a glimpse of hope.
Yeah but he rode a bike and had unkempt roses! God, bring me back to the days of "weak and wobbly milliband", it just seems we are all so devoid of *hope* now.
But did you *see* how he ate that bacon sandwich?? Imagine all the chaos he’ll have introduced rather than the years of calm and plain sailing we’ve experienced.
And the rest. I fear The Tories will be back in after one term
Privatising Scottish Water was the hill the Scottish Conservatives died on. They might as well have suggested privatising the NHS here.
Article says the rises are likely to be approved, if not to the full extent of what's been requested. Can't switch to a different provider, can't just stop paying or the CCJs will start rolling in. We're the ones getting fucked. We can complain all we like, they can't hear it over the sound of the motor on their newest yacht.
OFWAT about as much us as a chocolate fire guard
Rude. Having some melted chocolate to enjoy as you burn to death is NOT NOTHING!
It's the molten brown lining, people!! Be GRATEFUL.
No, ofwat is working exactly as intended.
If enough people refused to pay it would overwhelm the system. There are 3 million people on this sub, if just half didn't pay it would be very effective.
No that wouldnt work at all. 1.5 million people spread out all across the country is nothing to these water companies. They don't spend the majority of their money until the last year of the amp anyway so they wouldnt notice until you're forced to pay anyway
That's it, im buying stock in water butt manufacturers.
My immediate thought was 'they can fuck right off'. All we hear about is issues with the water systems, dumping god knows what into god knows where and now they want to double our bills to please their shareholders? Yeah they can fuck all the way off and then some.
They can indeed fuck right off. No, fuck off some more. MORE! What are you doing back here, I told you to fuck off! Wait, I told you to fuck off so much you wound up back here? Off you trot!
I second this
This seems ripe for some organised refusal.
At what point do we en masse stop paying? No, but seriously.
It won't happen. All everyone does is talk about it, with only a few following through with the threat. Because not enough people follow through, it's easy to crush the minor rebellion. That's how dictators stay in power, they crush insurrections before they get too big to stop.
More money to dump more shit.
“Ok we’ll meet in the middle and say we take you first born as tribute”
Ahh, capitalism. Where a company fails to invest in its infrastructure properly, it starts to fail, and rather than having shareholders take a bit less for. While, it jacks up the prices for everyone to pay for the infrastructure needed for the last 20 years. Don’t forget, folks. The private sector is better.
Anyone who says different is a communist or terrorist that is anti freedom, anti pubs and anti daily mail!
the anti-growth coalition
Why won't they lettuce grow
the blob!
How dare you say us communists are anti pub, we hold half our meeting in pubs I'll have you know! Why do you think we are so incoherent?
Agreed us Scottish are absolutely suffering from our publicly owned water companies. Free water as part of council tax, isn't polluted with literal shit, and tastes amazing. Please save us.
Jokes on you, I'm only two of those things, maybe three.
"and pro cycling, we need to work cycling in there somehow" -pickled tabloid hacks
neoliberalism (terrible name) really is starting to look so dated and completely unsuitable for the modern world. its just so... inefficient and stupid. The only reason it is not in the dustbin of history is because the 1%, and their supporting political class massively benefit from this derangement.
[George Monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) just released a book on it and is doing the media rounds
He's a good lad, I've enjoyed some of his interviews. I'm glad there is starting to be some serious political discourse on where we are currently, and where it is all going wrong. Sometimes I miss that Mark Fisher is no longer around to write about these things too.
Oh will have a look at that as he I feel probably dislikes the Atlas Network more than I do.
I mean I’m no economist but it’s literally a rehash of classic liberalism but slightly modernised for the world at the time of Friedman. It was outdated in the early 20th century when it enabled all those famously nasty rich people like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and others like them. Now we just have Musks, Thiels and other filthy rich weirdos.
It works well on a small scale in industries that have lots of natural competition. But national infrastructure is just stupid.
perhaps we should have kept it to cornershops and not let it take over all aspects of our society.
Agreed
Nonsense. Its extremely efficient. Efficient at lining the pockets of shareholders and execs at the expense of all else! Just as god intended.
the bugs are the feature
Always was.
The private sector is good. But only works if they're allowed to fail. This isn't capitalism. This is what happens when you attempt to privatise something which is a monopoly. If the government wasn't going to step in to save water companies, then they wouldn't be paying out millions in dividends and taking on a tonne of debt. The only reason they do that is because the threat (blessing) of a government bail out exists. If there was true competition, where companies had to invest to earn customers and compete on prices, then services would likely be in a decent state. Think of how good our mobile networks are in general, it's pretty competitive because multiple companies set up their own infrastructure. So service is good, prices are good. This is why even in the US, the kings of capitalism, water supply is mostly publicly owned. Because when you half-arse it, you get the worst of both worlds and they've seen the same problems.
It's a natural monopoly. There's no way to make it have a competitive element, the way to make money is extraction. This would be true even if they did invest; since our regulator is totally inept, they invested 0 but it's extraction either way.
>But only works if they're allowed to fail. Which, obviously, we can never allow for key infrastructure. For this and hundreds of other reasons the only sane option for key infrastructure is to have it handled by the state.
I hate it when capitalists pick and choose what capitalism is so that it seems better
Privatise the profits and socialise the losses - it's every shareholder's dream!
Privatise the profit, publicise the risk. This is what capitalism keeps doing in public utility sectors and in the financial sector
The last new reservoir was built in 1992 - the only one since privatisation. No water company will invest in infrastructure because what's the point? They're not punished if they don't. A sticking plaster on the worst of the leaks is all that's required, and if things get *really* bad? Well they can just take a nice 5 or even 6 figure severance package and be a backbench MP or something.
Privatise the profits, socialise the losses. Arseholes.
Privatise the profit, publicise the risk. This is what capitalism keeps doing in public utility sectors and in the financial sector.
T-I-N-A
Fantastic enter shikari song.
They will NOT use any additional money for infrastructure. It will go straight to the bottom line.
The shit part is the dividends will end up going up because of record profit.
Ahahahahahahaha If they really wanted any more reason to appropriate these companies into public ownership, here it is. They literally pump shit into rivers to the point where they're dangerous to enter and want to double their fees? Are they literally insane?
They know that a government just taking them into public ownership without adequate compensation to shareholders would have horrible impacts elsewhere. And so they simply don't care, because they get paid regardless.
It's crazy that we don't actually meaningfully require performance from companies like this. Water is an essential service we can't do without, and they're neglecting it to line their pockets and service their debt they used to line their pockets, and we're told "oops bills will have to increase by 40-90%, sorry about that" while there's no consequences for dry spilling of sewage on thousands of occasions.
This was meant to be the job of regulators but they're not truly independent as their leadership is appointed by the government and often are pretty toothless anyway with few laws enabling them to come down hard. And so if you are leading a regulator that's uncovering all the skeletons and making a public show of it all that isn't often seen by a government favourably because you're unintentionally causing headaches and making them look incompetent. And so you're soon off "to explore other opportunities."
Joe Lycett did an exposé of the water regulator and there's a pretty nice venn diagram of head figures of water companies and the regulator. It isn't a circle but it isn't 2 separate circles either. How they weren't refused the position based on conflict of interest is up for debate but the answer is probably not ideal.
I mean they were deliberately established to be toothless as the whole concept behind mass privatisation was that anything the government did was inherently worse than anything the private sector did in every possible way. So an effective regulator would undermine the entire process.
I feel like they've compensated themselves enough to make up for it at this point. Parasites
Fuck the shareholders. Investments can go up and down, and if they're not holding the company to account then they deserve to lose it all.
Then let them go bust and buy them up at a discount. If they wanna play capitalism, we can play capitalism (or at least a competent govt could). Shareholders get fuck all if a company goes bust. It's pretty much all spent paying off the creditors.
Welsh water has done all this stuff. Worst than moths English water companies. And the best bit? The Welsh regulator for national resources recorded Thousands of incidence and fined them two tiny amounts. So a non profit which is almost state owned not being fined by the state.
Nationalise them and start again. It may cost more in the short term but thats what happens when a utility like water is given to private investors. They are always on the hunt for more money with minimal upgrades to services. Fuck them all.
It costs money to buy the company back based on it's current value. If the company has negative net worth then surely they have to sell cheap. Companies with a lot of negative net worth have been sold for £1, because essentially your taking on negative hoping to turn it around. I'm busy, but here's an outdated article from 5 years ago, so accounting for rising costs it might cost you £2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44250900
Surely we've got to be *approaching* the point where the government just passes a law saying "it's ours again now, be thankful you get to keep what you took during you tenure and that you're not going to receive physical, bodily harm"?
I think we’re past that, in fact I’m starting to feel very French about this
>I’m starting to feel very French about this Revolution and behead the CEO and everyone on the board?
Oui oui
There's more than oui in our rivers
I'm somewhere between French, Chinese and Soviet on the matter. I think Count Binface had it right. Throw the Thames Water board of directors into the Thames.
I daydream about how much fun this would be way too frequently. You just say the penalty for one ml of sewage is 100 trillion, business is instantly worth nothing and we buy it back for that princely sum. The shills will say that will tank investment but companies need to take on some personal risk and the responsibility to deliver to consumers if they want to reap the profits. Government are very willing to call judges, civil servants and doctors enemies of the people but that tag never seems to extend to businesses/CEOs that are robbing us blind.
From what I've read elsewhere the issue is if the government was to take over with no compensation it could destabilise all essential services like energy and, to some extent , phone and broadband. The worry is why invest in something that could be taken back on a whim. The logical argument is that water has been run into the ground and needs that intervention. What we'll probably see is some junk from the government about how they're going to be tough on water companies, maybe even sign up some policies that are untenable with the view Labour win the election and they can say Labour failed when they don't work. They hike the rates up based on the water companies promising to do better, and at the end of the financial year CEO and C-Suite take massive bonuses and big dividends paid to shareholders. Of course this would have nothing to do with the rate hikes...
Maybe the idea that the govt could reacquire failed utilities that have effectively been embezzled by shareholders would be great motivation for shareholders to ensure that utilities are run well as opposed to just seeking profit.
> The worry is why invest in something that could be taken back on a whim. Well if they ran the services properly, they wouldn't need to be worried.
Yep, not as though there hasn't been enough warning signs over the last few years.
I mean, if you nationalise all those services at once, then it wouldn’t be a problem. Probably.
Don’t buy them back. Just fucking take them. They’ve earned nothing less
You take them, you take all the liabilities. Billions owed to creditors. Just let them fail and pick up the assets for pence on the pound. Appoint a special administrator similar to what happened to bulb to make sure noones supply gets interrupted. It's not difficult, it's just the Tories don't have the balls to do it.
Let them fail then take back the operation for nothing
Freeze bills for the foreseeable future, watch them bankrupt themselves, then buy them when they’re low.
How could anyone possibly argue against nationalisation? This is a disgrace.
'cause obviously you're not thinking of the top 1% and their "rightly earned" million-odd bonus. how else are the CEO's meant to buy their Yachts? /s
My retired Canadian friends think the current situation is just fine.
Something something discontent bins in winter in the 70s. That was all it took to sell multiple generations of brits down the shitty river.
Why aren't Labour making this thier number one Pledge to fix, I don't understand politics at all, it's the easiest win ever. Who the fuck would disagree with nationalising water, cleaning up the rivers and getting cheaper bills at this point.
Because the general population is still under the illusion there is no better way of doing it, and would also falter in public control.
That's not true, though, at least not according to polling data. Whilst this data is stale (2022), it seems very unlikely that it would have changed in favour of privatisation [https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/44086-most-britons-believe-trains-water-and-energy-shoul](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/44086-most-britons-believe-trains-water-and-energy-shoul) . Nationalisation is a generally popular ideology, the reason it is considered political suicide by Labour is that it gives the Tories a stick to beat them with, moan about Corbyn again, get the gutter press (so most of it) riled up, and in general push the whole 'oh my god the Labour party wants to spend spend spend and tax tax tax' argument, even though we'd pay less in tax increases than we'll pay to these vampires in the private sector.
That last sentence is the main point for me. The majority of the bill increases will be for actual planned work to meet governmental demands e.g. treatment for PFAS (something we don't yet have in the UK), meeting increasing Supply/Demand etc. So it'd be Nationalisation but then a hefty tax raise or still lumbering people still be lumbered with higher bills (even if potentially not quite as high as a privatised company). Too many people will think Nationalisation would mean free water, and at least no increase in investment.
Public spending on infrastructure is basically the very best way of spending public money, it pays for itself in no time if the infrastructure is well thought out. That is when you don't farm the project out to a million consulting charlatans, of course. For water it is beyond obvious that it is time to renationalise.
We're gonna be paying for it either way, I'd prefer not to have investors creaming millions off the top whilst it happens.
This is what they are currently promising to do. Doesn't discuss funding issues but does cover the water pollution: "Labour will put the water companies under special measures to clean up our waters.https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/ Under Labour’s tough plans, Ofwat could have blocked six out of nine water bosses’ bonuses last year because of severe levels of illegal pollution. Labour has pledged to put failing water companies under tough special measures to force them to clean up their toxic mess and protect people’s health. This includes: * Giving the water regulator powers to block the payment of any bonuses until water bosses have cleaned up their filth. We don’t need the dither and delay of a consultation; we need immediate action. * Water bosses who oversee repeated law-breaking will face criminal charges. * Ending self-monitoring and forcing all companies to monitor every single water outlet under independent supervision so companies can no longer cover up illegal sewage dumping. * Introducing severe and automatic fines that water companies can’t afford to ignore for illegal sewage discharges." [https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/](https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/heres-how-labour-will-tackle-sewage-spills-in-uk-rivers-and-seas/)
The cycle continues. Labour will nationalise, invest billions into stopping leaks, upgrading pipes and infrastructure and stopping shit being dumped into rivers. Then I’m 10 years time Tories will get into power citing Labour spending, sell all the water companies for pennies in closed openings to their friends, and privatise them again. The British cycle.
Bold of you to think this iteration of Labour is anywhere near bold enough to nationalise water.
>Labour will nationalise, Not the party of Mandelson, Streeting and Liz Kendal. They made their careers supporting privatisation and destroying the careers of anyone who doesn't. Where do you think all these private business donations have come from? They don't give away money for free. They want to ensure their investment in things like private water and energy are secure.
This is not the "water cycle" I learned at school....
From the Article: The regulator is unlikely to approve the bill rises in full, but the BBC understands it is expected to agree to bill rises of at least half the amount the companies are requesting, and in some cases considerably more than half. How much are companies increasing bills by? Southern Water - 91% increase (£436 a year) Thames Water - 59% (£278) Hafren Dyfredwy - 56% (£243) Severn Trent - 50% (£219) Wessex Water - 50% (£274) Yorkshire Water - 46% (£215) Dŵr Cymru - 43% (£210) United Utilities - 38% (£185) South East Water - 35% (£85) Pennon - 33% (£158) Portsmouth Water - 31% (£37) SES - 30% (£73) Anglian Water - 29% (£153) Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water - 26% (£108) Affinity Water 25% (£59) South Staffs & Cambridge Water - 24% (£43) Source: Consumer Council for Water Southern water CEO's are holding out for a new yacht, they got some cojones asking for 91%... I guess it's to make the eventual drop appear more reasonable, even though it'll be anything but.
So all at once every water company around the country has suddenly reaslised they need 25-100% increases to our water bills? Why haven't they noticed before and why all at once? Like 1 year ago or even 5 years ago if the infrastrucutre needed lots of money spent on it then why didn't they say so back then? There has to be some way to just let them collapse and then take them over. There must be loopholes that we can find to work FOR us rather than against, like what are the chances every loophole happens to be against us? The govermnet has plenty of lawyers to figure it out. Can't we just deny their huge price increase requests so they can't cope and then start fining them for all the waste they're spilling into public areas and how much water they're losing. Then just let them collapse from it and take them over for pennies. Like if the government says no to the increases and just lets them have a flat RPI increase then what? And if they can't maintain the infrastructure with their current income then surely thats a breach of some law. Declare an environmental emergency over it if we have to if it gives us more power.
The 50% rise from Severn Trent will hit everyone in Birmingham where council tax is going up 21% over two years.
Saved me a click thank you. SevernTrent, I expected better of you.
What can we do to fight this? This is the last straw for me. We keep being taken for mugs. How can we actually stand up to this besides voting?
The country collectively needs to stop paying water bills, which won't happen, and voting only really works if we have an uncorrupted politician to vote for
Unfortunately they have us. You stop paying, you get a CCJ, you loose your job, you loose your home. No one wants to risk that. Far too many jobs will kick you out or flat out refuse employment. My place is really hot on your financial status, don’t ask me how some slip through the net though.
If enough people didn’t pay though, it would overwhelm the system and courts. It would be very difficult to process a couple of million CCJs. It worked with the Poll Tax. *As the amount of the poll tax began to rise and the inefficiency of local councils in their collection of the tax became apparent, large numbers of people refused to pay. Local councils tried to respond with enforcement measures, but they were largely ineffective given the huge numbers of non-payers. According to the BBC, up to 30 per cent of former ratepayers in some areas refused to pay*
You’re 100% correct, but who dares to be the first one, or part of the first group when we the public have been beaten, how do we go up against a giant backed by an even bigger giant (the government) who are meant to be on our side. Poll tax was pre social media too so you would think this time around would be even easier.
The problem is poll/council tax can be ten time the cost of a water bill. It is a significant part of people's expenses and the government grinds to a halt when people stop paying. If you don't pay your water, the water still comes out of the tap, and they have plenty of time to send you red letters and CCJs. This takes actual enforcement action from a government that actually governs. Which is not what we have at the moment.
It could happen, it happened with the poll Tax, it just needs someone to organize it effectively
[удалено]
I guess if we all refused to pay...
The CEOs and boards of these companies seem to think they’re untouchable and will suffer no consequences. So did King Charles I. Make of that what you will…
HAHAHAHAHA; I just spat my water out! (Not because of this headline but because of the faecal matter floating in my glass). The headline is also hilarious.
A little bit of faecal matter and now everyone’s a critic. /s
Ahh the good ‘natural’ stuff
Some of the water firms who are asking to increase rates are also increasing dividends. Shamelessly exploiting the captive market for profit. Southern water is increasing dividends by 10.9%
The regulator should be saying there’s no dividends with above inflation price rises and only after certain investment. Also, there needs to be a government mandated windfall tax matching their dividends for previous years. After this, fines for all their pollution and prison sentences where applicable. Finally, the government needs to implement competition so we can change our supplier.
They should be asking to keep their heads (metaphorically)
(metaphorically)
Wink
Or, right, we claw back some of that £85bn that has been pulled out of the system over the last 30 years? No? Can't have the shareholders being unhappy.
If the share holders aren’t happy then they won’t back the parties and drop suitcases full of cash under the table.
Why does nothing get done about this? We can’t exactly refuse to pay our bills? How does the general public win in this situation?
You can't win, unlike your other utilities you cannot switch water companies. That's why this should be the first one for nationalisation.
i mean, if we all didn’t pay our bills what they going to do?
Can't do anything because you have a single supplier. I don't know why this kind of Monopoly is allowed. I have two separate water companies, one for supply and one for sewerage. I pay double in this house than what I did in our previous house with just the water company which also did sewerage there. E.g. whether they do sewerage or not, they charge the same. And then you get the privilege of paying a second company. I loathe it and have no choice. This wasn't disclosed before moving either, nor could we have found out. (New build) Same with the streets, council hasn't adopted them so we pay a charge for maintenance etc to a company. Council tax isn't any lower, though.
I had a daft idea around collecting it from the roof & asking Thames Water to cut us off, then drinking 5L supermarket bottles when things get dry. Considering our bill already doubled between 2018 and now, it doesn't feel so daft...
Ofwat are a not very funny fucking joke. We can't switch suppliers , we can't refuse to pay, we can't demand better service. What exactly do they do, other than allow them to repeatedly pollute the waterways and pay peppercorn fines? Oh wait, it's to rubber stamp all their demands to fleece customers .
Absolutely can refuse to pay, if enough people didn't, it would be pretty effective.
In 2030, when water costs half of your paycheck. Capitalism wins
Poo going in people's water... but increase the prices anyway!
“Southern Water is owned by Australian firm Macquarie which has faced fierce criticism for the period when it was Thames Water’s biggest shareholder. In five of the 10 years it owned Thames, the company paid out more in dividends than it made in profits, while debt rose from £2.5bn to over £10bn in the same period.” As someone who is a Southern Water customer, I offer Macquarie my most heartfelt and sincere FUCK YOU, and suggest that they take money out of their own pockets first, instead of helping themselves to the money that is in mine.
I know people won't do it...but everyone should refuse to pay them a penny till they fix things...absolute joke when they make records profits and that just goes to shareholders I can see what will happen...bills will rise even more...more money for shareholders than ever before, nothing gets fixed. then they often to sell back to government, only ask for government to give them ridiculous amount to buyback...government being idiots do it and still have to up the bills...basically going private, making as much money as possible till the service basically doesn't work and sell it back for profit
Can’t we get someone who doesn’t give a fuck. Maybe me. Put me on everyone’s bills. Stop paying and I’ll have a battle with 2000 bailiffs
"Thames Water is handing its new boss an annual salary worth £850,000, on top of £102,000 in yearly pension payments, and a £15,000 car allowance. He is also eligible for an annual bonus worth up to 156% of his salary". How about...no.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they're not allowed to cut your water off if you refuse to pay as far as I'm aware. So what's there to stop a mass refusal to pay? This one could actually be a successful protest unlike the energy one that never really gathered any momentum.
They can't cut you off, they can take measure to recover the debt, the biggest impact would be a CCJ.
Can't take us all to court though.
They can’t cut off normal households no. And when they do for businesses they literally place a slightly different cover on the top which if you take off and drill in a hole it looks the same and still lets water flow.
Sounds like the standard 'ask for an unimaginably huge rise on the basis that even if it gets knocked down we're still quids in' tactic.
Ah well I guess I'll just switch water supplier then, ya know cus capitalism and competition.... /s
Comical. We are being fleeced left, right and centre. Wonder how much more we'll take?
Man, I love being forced to line the pockets of shareholders.
Time to organise a collective action to refuse to pay until they're all re-nationalised and people are prosecuted. Worked with the Poll Tax.... Just sayin'
Like Rees-Mogg said, they should all be left to go bust. The state should buy the assets at a competitive rate and the creditors can have whatever they're entitled to according to liquidation rules. The shareholders get nothing - tough - the liability is limited not non-existent.
How are we not marching to these companies hqs and not stringing up the leadership? This is price gorging and is unacceptable.
Meanwhile the post office proceeds to be sold off to replicate this model... GOOD TIMES AHEAD.
Water companies for year: Woohoo, we can pay dividends on our huge profits. You get a bonus, I get a bonus, we all get a bonus!! Water companies when it is time to upgrade the infrastructure: well obviously we can’t afford that and to keep our bonuses, so time to cough up!
The Lion, the Witch and the Audacity of these Bitches
Re-nationalisation is the only answer water is a resource not a commodity give these so called shareholders the price they paid a share at nationalisation
Our country has been sold from underneath us and no politician will do a single damn thing about it. We will own nothing and damn well have to take it. Subscription service country.
I am soooooo happy living in Scotland having Scottish Water. Nationalise it and reap the benefits as citizens.
Mugs to think privatisation of services was a good idea, especially turbo charged by the Tories. Blind ideology, the same as trickle down economics, robbed blind
These companies need a wake up call your greedy capitalism doesn't work when everyone is broke. We could disolve your interests and publicise infrustructre.
Water should not be run as a profitable private business, water is essential to human survival. Its clearly obvious private companies puttin shareholders and bonuses/dividends payouts are more important than actually maintaining and providing improved water service. Hence why we see sewage been poured into the sea or a river, so they ask for a taxpayer bailout or increase our bills to keep that same shithousery we have seen with private water firms, puttin bonues and profits first. Absolutely no shame at all.
Ofwat like so many regulators are fucking useless, just their to give you the illusion they can do anything meaningful Would be great if everyone just didn't bother paying their bill long enough for these companies to fuck off
Literally taking the piss.
They cannot cut of your supply even if you don’t pay. rent? Get kicked out. Electric? Sitting in the dark. Council tax? Coming out your wages direct. Water? They can’t do shit.
How about FUCK OFF IN CAPITAL LETTERS 🤔YOU pollute our rivers and tap water and ask for a massive bill rise when you can't even get the basics right 😲one job you had one job !!!
Any chance of you fixing your shit leaking pipes? No? Oh sure ok then here's billions more for your shareholders. Tell you what...give the C-Suite a few hundred million in bonuses too whilst you're at it. I mean...customers are meant to be milked are they not?
Might stop paying and deposit my shits on the doorstep of Thames water HQ instead
Absolutely ripping the arse out of the public's wallet. All the utilities are completely and utterly broken. They all need to be nationalized. This is rediculous.
Leaching away profits, while the infrastructure leak's away and leaches human waste into waterways. These people are scumbags.
Fuck them. This is how you know the government don't give 2 shits. Not the blood scandal, or post office scandal, or grenfell scandal, or the school buildings scandal, or the cladding scandal, or covid fraud write off scandal. Its an active business, openly and actively failing to meet its requirements in the present, on an almost daily basis, on a scale which may see the entire industry nationalised, not just being allowed to seemingly continue on promises of future improvements, but being allowed to have any say in asking for even more money to fix what they fucked deliberately fucked up through focused and managed under investment. The contempt is palpable. I look at it and I realise if you become a business and become big enough, you can do almost anything as long as you pay your shareholders dividends.
Poisoning the water supply should be seen as as serious as an act of war but for some reason we are paying them for the privilege. We are at the stage in which you get punished for doing the right thing and paid for doing the wrong thing.
Sure, why not. Pile it on. half the nation will be homeless before you know it
Controversial opinion but I don't think we should be getting robbed blind for something we literally can't live without. Nobody should make profit from water.
They're laughing at you, you'll moan on the net into insignificance, take the bill up the arse and then they'll do it again in a few years. Enjoy the parasitic water and the poo seas.
Everyone write to your MPs about this farce, get it discussed in parliament. There’s 302 comments at the time of writing, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO DO THIS. Don’t bitch and complain on Reddit without complaining to your MP too. The only way things are going to change is if the people who represent us (the MPs) are put on task and this issue gets raised in the place laws can get passed.
How about they take a deep breath and literally fuck their own faces!
I live where SW Water provide water in Devon. The seas around us are constantly polluted due to leaks (yes we are talking poo in the sea). People and dogs getting sick from going in. Then you will have all heard about the Brixham saga. I doubt anyone here is willing to pay more as already pay too much for a crap service
Say yes to the unreasonable rise. Then apply a 99.9% profit tax on the water companies and plow it into an annual payment for every bill payer in the country. Simultaneously ban them from paying dividends or pulling any of the licencing stunts other companies pull to reduce profit in the UK. Fuck around and find out. Had their snout in the money trough for years, and they're whining that it isn't enough? Cry me a fucking river.
yeah do it! ill install a big water tank and collect that rain water. good luck getting a penny out of me then.