Another day, another story about the literal s**tshow that our water companies have become.
Yesterday Thames Water was fined £3.3 million for pumping so much undiluted sewage into the rivers near Gatwick Airport in 2017 that the water turned black, killing more than a thousand fish, including, ironically, brown trout. It’s kind of funny until you realise that our cherished rivers have become a kind of vomit-inducing diarrhoea soup. I’m no fan of those outdoor swimmers, but enough is enough.
This incident took place back in 2017 but according to new data presented to the High Court in a separate case, water companies discharged sewage into our rivers and seas (via their storm overflows) more than 300,000 times last year alone — around 824 times a day.
Even though Thames Water was given that hefty fine, it’s a tiny amount compared to the profits it makes. In the six months to September 2022, it reported pre-tax profits of £493.5million. They literally price in their fines while executives get paid handsomely. Chief Executive Sarah Bentley was set to receive a salary and perks worth £1.6m but resigned a few weeks ago with immediate effect.
Things are so bad at Thames Water that the firm also racked up £14billion of debt, which means Whitehall is drawing up plans to effectively renationalise it.
These companies aren’t proper businesses — they are lazy and have grown fat on failure
And who’s going to pick up the tab for this tsunami of incompetence and greed? We, the British public, who have been warned that our bills could shoot up by 40 per cent to cover the costs of fixing the sewage problem.
It’s time to call out the water companies for the grotesque symbol of corporate failure that they are: excess profiteering, ludicrous executive salaries, prioritising dividend payments, complex offshore financial arrangements, and dangerous levels of debt.
It’s incredible to think that when they were privatised in 1989, they started off debt-free but since then have accrued £54 billion in debt while paying out dividends of £66 billion to shareholders (according to analysis done last year for The Guardian). If only these cowboys could apply their engineering skills to infrastructure rather than dodgy, debt- laden financial deals.
Tories often say Margaret Thatcher’s greatest achievement was her ruthless pursuit of privatisation. Every national asset was flogged off. Well, here we are 30 years later, and that legacy is looking rather grim. Whether it was selling off council homes and not replenishing them, or the mess with the trains or the other utilities, or Royal Mail, it’s hard to find a privatised sector doing well.
And this is not to talk down business. I don’t see these companies — especially water — as proper businesses. They are lazy and cosseted, and have grown fat on corporate failure, creaming off profits while knowing that the state and the taxpayer will bail them out when it all goes Pete Tong.
The worst aspects of capitalism, backed up by the safety net of socialism. Many operate as virtual monopolies.
It’s hard to know how to fix this mess but if there’s one lesson we learn, let us not flog off anything we care about — especially the NHS. For those of you old enough to remember the advert – “Tell Sid… it’s all gone t*ts up.”
Young politicians don’t see a future in the Commons
SNP MP Mhairi Black has made the shock announcement that she’s standing down at the next general election. She was a popular, rising star in the SNP, famously beating Labour heavyweight Douglas Alexander when she was just 20. Ironically, as she wants out, he’s trying to get back in again as a Labour MP in a different seat.
Black says she’s exhausted and blames the “toxic” work culture at Westminster. I have sympathy with her. It can be brutal and take a toll on your mental and physical health, plus your relationships.
It’s interesting that so many young Conservative politicians are leaving Parliament, like William Wragg, Chloe Smith and Dehenna Davidson. Of course, the cold, hard reality is that things aren’t looking great for either the Tories or the SNP at the next election given Labour’s strong poll leads, but it’s not a great advert for the Commons that so many young and talented politicians don’t see a future there.
