Labour used water industry analysis to argue against nationalisation

14 comments

1. How about the Government actually fund the regulator properly first (after 14 years of Tory decimation)?

   Presumably the ‘Govenrment employees’ within Ofwat, the DWI and the EA would continue to be the ones in charge of spend and costs in a renationalised water industry, so it feels like setting that up first and seeing if that makes any difference in the short term might be the most effective approach.

2. Somethings needs to be done before we renationalise water. It’s in too much of state to be brought right now. We are essentially paying for tons of debts and shitty facilities. They need to focus on the regulator and making sure all the companies can act up to code before the process of renationalising

3. Labour doesn’t want to nationalise the water industry, no sensible politician would, and of course is using any excuse not to do so.

   Whilst the water industry is in private hands then they can simply deflect any criticism of sewage leaks, etc. to the private owners and the regulator.

   Nationalise it and then all that shit in the rivers is their doing (because the shit isn’t going to go away instantly it is nationalised and would take decades to fix) and what politician wants to hand their opponents a stick to beat them with.

4. > Labour used “economically illiterate” analysis paid for by water companies in order to argue against the nationalisation of the sector, the Guardian can reveal.

   > In an official letter recently sent to anti-sewage groups, civil servants cited a paper by the Social Market Foundation as a reason to avoid nationalisation as part of its review of the sector. The report from 2018 was commissioned by United Utilities, Anglian Water, Severn Trent and South West Water.

   So, water is wet?

5. Fine em £1000 per turd & wait for the official receiver to collect them would be my plan.

6. The government has no right to nationalise any industry for any reason.

7. Because they couldn’t organize a brewery bash that’s why,

   I have yet to find any company capable of working when upper management get involved.

   Its even worse when the Government organization takes over, they don’t want to spend money and want to fix everything on the cheap except they still want the big bucks for sitting on their arses point and shouting at everyone

8. We used to build new reservoirs every year right up until the early 1990’s. Then guess why it stopped after that? Privatisation. What needs to really change is the short term strategy of this rather ridiculous nation.

   We haven’t built a new reservoir in this country since about 1991 if memory serves

9. Labour-tory are ideologically opposed to public ownership. That’s all.

10. *Labour used research and fact before making an important decision for the country.

11. Failure for a water (or any utility)company to meet standards two years in a row should result in a default return to the government. No share buyout or compensation, just a free pass over of the company. Any shares, dividends or bonuses paid within that period should be returned to the government and 50% of all salaries paid toward the most senior 20 employees.

12. Privatisation relies on capitalist systems to produce higher quality and lower costs.

    These systems work very well, but ONLY if built in a framework where quality and cost are selected for. No competitors and shite regulations will always produce crap outcomes.

13. Angela Smith (funny tinge MP) was rabidly against nationalising water, lost her parliamentary seat and went to work as a non exec director of…….Portsmouth Water. Nothing against any rule to prohibit this kind of thing but it looks very corrupt. Anyway, after defecting from Labour she joined Change UK, then went independent then went to the Lib Dems. She’s now back in the Labour party. The UK is fucked. It’s all just grifting and a massive fucking joke to these ppl.

14. I wouldn’t want to nationalise that debt ridden abused company either. Setup a national rival company, let the privatised one fail and buy back the assets for cheap without having to take on that mountain of debt.