Chinese firm a leading contender to buy Thames Water, reports say

37 comments

1. Could just nationalise and not hand yet another piece of critical infrastructure to a company from a nation that regularly blurs the line between private and public interests and has a history of acting in bad faith

2. Why are politicians so dumb. What gain is it to have foreign companies own our water supply in London. 

3. Labour desperate to nationalise a trains, which largely work, and by all accounts work better than in British Rail Days, yet they won’t nationalise critical infrastructure that clearly isn’t working. They’ve got it all wrong.

   Can only assume the rail union has great power, and nationalising is great for their members, while water has no powerful union sitting behind it.

   Also shows they act on their donors demands and not national interest. Similar to the previous govt, just different sponsors.

4. Shitty 40 year old, not fit for purpose steel mills are a national security matter.

   The water support to our capital city? The Chinese can have that if they want it.

5. Having essential infrastructure privately owned and run for profit rather than state owned and run, purely for the stability and improvement of the nation seems shortsighted at best. Having it privately owned by a foreign party who do not have the UK’s best interests in mind seems unhinged.

6. This nonsense has got to stop. A foreign country (and a potential enemy) owning critical infrastructure like this cannot happen

7. Great. Not content with our money ending up in the designer handbags and wallets of previous shareholders, we’re now expected to give the Chinese economy a hand. Wtf are they thinking???

8. Its beggars belief how the company with a monopoly on water could go bankrupt, but then that’s capitalism in a nutshell. Take out of billions in loans and dividends refuse to invest. Just utter greed, this is the perfect time to bring it back into the public ownership but no Labour wants to speed run into oblivion next election.

9. Are they going to recapitalise it or have they uncovered some more assets to strip? Or will just squeeze the British people for more cash with higher bills and get a phat handout from the state too.

10. Have they already not learned from the likes of Tata steel?

    A critical piece of infrastructure should not be for profit. Nationalise it!

11. Nationalising is the only answer, nobody else in the world has been stupid enough to have fully privatised water.

    The amount of debt these water companies have is close to equal to the amount they’ve paid out in dividends according to Wikipedia, showing that they should have always been non profit services.

    (Okay, I guess we didn’t fully either if you want to be pedantic since Scotland isn’t privatised and we’re still the UK)

12. Given that we might actually go to war with China, *do we think this is a good fucking idea*?

13. Will they be any worse than [the Australians who owned it previously](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41152516)?

14. Can we please stop selling off all our vital infrastructure to foreign companies?

15. Well at least they’ll be able to poison us easily if we end up going to war with China

16. Just the fact that this Hong Kong bank wants to buy a firm that faces massive liabilities in the near future in terms of fines and required infrastructure upgrades, and the current shareholders have made nothing out of it for years, has got to be a massive red flag in itself!

17. The consequences of neo-liberalism have been a disaster for the human race

18. Please don’t fucking do it. Water is a national security service.

19. FFS here we go again. “Learning lessons” is a common trope in the UK yet we never learn lessons.

20. Simply should not be allowed to happen – that simple.

21. How many water companies do UK companies own in other countries?

22. Stop selling off critical national infrastructure to foreign companies for fucks sake.

23. Literal threat.

    Just fucking nationalise this clown show

24. Our politicians are too damn lazy and stupid to do this ….. they will happily let someone else deal with the problems, and they might get a nice donation too.

25. Oh so now we’re not just siphoning off the money into private investors, we’re siphoning them out of the country too

26. Then when WW3 happens they will destroy our water easily

27. Either the Chinese think they can make money out of this somehow (probably by raising prices and cutting spending even more) or they are doing it to have control of national infrastructure for leverage in other deals or to use in a more hostile way if needs be in future.

    If either of these seem like a good idea to anyone in OFWAT or the government then God help us all.

28. Jesus just hand the keys to the UK and get it over with

29. We should be rioting on the streets over this stuff, instead we’re shouting at hotels.

30. How is this not treason? Selling off critical national infrastructure to an unofficial enemy.

31. We’ve been through this before when Huawei were going to provide our 4G infrastructure… It didn’t go well. Let’s learn some lessons here.

32. This cannot be permitted. We actually have a chance to reclaim some of our national infrastructure, and it should be done, no matter what shareholders may lose money.

33. Seems like a fantastic idea. What could possibly go wrong

34. Just fuck no. China doesn’t belong owning vital infrastructure.

35. Because the Chinese running our steel went SO well before?

36. Did we not learn anything from British Steel?

    At this point the complete adversity to re-nationalizing our public utilities is insane. The government is no longer acting in the peoples best interests.

37. Personally I would prefer that China does not get to control such important infrastructure. They do not believe in democracy and could influence politics to their benefit.

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