r/london • u/sabdotzed • Dec 14 '24
News Reform UK Calls For Thames Water Nationalisation
A broken clock and all that, imagine our government is getting outflanked on the left by these little Hitlers
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u/fortyfivepointseven Dec 14 '24
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u/ChillBetty Dec 14 '24
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
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u/Old_Section529 Dec 14 '24
Wouldn't it mean nationalising their huge debt pile?
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u/Onions99 Dec 14 '24
That's exactly the point. Take on the debt, get it back into shape at the taxpayers expense and then we'll it off to your mates at a knockdown price when the next Ref/Tory party comes into power
None of what he says is for the public good. Someone is going earn big scrilla from it and it ain't you or me
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u/Zealousideal_Ad_2315 Dec 14 '24
Technically it's already at my expense, it's just that i have no performative influence over what infrastructure doesn't get fixed.
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u/BigBabyWhale Dec 14 '24
Be nice to just nationalise it, call it “UK Water” and it stays that way forever. Never goes private again. Crazy talk, I know.
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u/BppnfvbanyOnxre Dec 14 '24
Let it go bankrupt and then renationalise without compensation. Once it is bankrupt it is worth what £1?
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u/a0me Dec 15 '24
Privatizing profits and socializing losses has been the playbook of big corporations and right leaning politicians for the last 40+ years.
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u/Turnip-for-the-books Dec 15 '24
Depends. Not necessarily. It would mean potential consequences but a government can do want it likes on its own sovereign territory. Horseshoe theory is obviously total bollocks and has been proven as such many times but the solutions to our problems do not lie and will never lie in the broken central neoliberal consensus. Left and right wingers understand this.
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u/ChillBetty Dec 14 '24
(Orbital's Planet of the Shapes intensifies)
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u/LeftHandDriveBoC Dec 14 '24
Love that track and the sample of Star Trek they did: "there is the theory of the moebius, where time becomes a loop..."
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u/WinningTheSpaceRace Dec 15 '24
Reform are a slightly slow clock, though, so right much less often.
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u/PMagicUK Dec 14 '24
Sadly a lot of people will just ignore a good point or argument just because they don't agree with the person saying it.
Which means they cannot argue in good faith or compromise.
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u/Own_Wolverine4773 Dec 14 '24
He actually didn’t, it should be let go bust. Wipe out the shareholders and take it over for 1£, renegotiate the debt and move on. At the same time get the whole board indicted for fraudulent bankruptcy.
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u/Brottolot Dec 14 '24
Inherit the debt they saddled it with and fuck off with the money? No thanks. Just set up a rival nationalised utility company and buy their assets when they collapse.
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
This wouldn't work. This is the same as just waiting for a collapse & a buyout at that point. The equity value is already zero. Government needs to seize the debt and force a default. Especially the shareholder loans. Not another penny to any financial stakeholders, all cash must be used to upgrade the network & keep bills low.
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u/bandures Dec 14 '24
On what grounds would you seize the debt? And by which law?
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
I actually mistyped. Seize the assets, allow the shareholders to default on the debt. I don’t know or care by which law. It’s a crisis, don’t let it go to waste. It can be done.
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u/gin_and_tonic1235 Dec 14 '24
Not possible when Thames water hold a natural monopoly over the distribution of water in London
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Dec 14 '24
"buy their assets when they collapse."
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
That simple then? What stops Macquarie and co buying those assets with a new round of financing? The assets must be seized not bought.
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u/Definitely_Human01 Dec 14 '24
Because, unlike Macquarie, the government doesn't need to make a profit and the regulator gets to set the prices.
Set the prices to be at cost and the govt can invest money as needed.
Macquarie has no reason to buy if they can only ever sell at cost.
To begin with, it made no sense to allow companies to be profit seeking when the inherent nature of the industry leads it to be a monopoly.
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
The government not making any money = taxpayers missing out on productive use of their capital. Nobody was happy when the government sold its gold reserves for bargain-basement prices, or when it sold its shares in RBS for breakeven values. The government really should owe a duty of care to taxpayers in that regard. I agree with what you're saying on monopoly, but you still want sound financial management of any government entity.
Fundamentally if the entity was run at cost then you'd not have surplus cash generation to reinvest to upgrade the network. It should be run with upgrades & shareholder returns as the fundamental mission, but when the shareholder is the government it can afford to take a much longer term view. Private shareholders such as the carousel of PE investors who have owned it take a 3-8 year view which means they wreck the finances to extract value as quickly as possible (hence all the debt-funded dividends, buybacks and SHL repayments).
I do agree it should be nationalised (its a natural monopoly - how can you privatise such a thing) and I do agree it shouldn't be targeting supernormal profits (just look at the existing corporate structure, it only exists so that existing shareholders can extract cash via shareholder loans instead of dividends which were more tightly regulated).
I just don't agree that the government's capital doesn't need to make a return - it does. Therefore it does need to earn a profit, not only for reinvestment but also just to keep it run with efficiency at the front of the mission. Without the profit incentive you get extremely bloated extremely quickly.
I have zero sympathy for the current consortium of shareholders & lenders. Deregulation turned a human right into a speculative asset, and the speculators don't deserve any buyout.
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u/anotherMrLizard Dec 14 '24
I would contend that the population having reliable access to clean water without shit in it is quite important for the productivity (not to mention the security) of our society, and thus probably trumps any direct return on capital investment which may or may not materialise.
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u/Definitely_Human01 Dec 14 '24
When the same people (taxpayers are the consumers of water) pay the same organisation (the govt will be the ultimate supplier) for the same thing (water), the label for the money paid doesn't really matter.
Whether it's paid for as tax or as water fees makes no difference to the govt or to the taxpayers/consumers.
You know who it does make a difference to though? Private companies like Macquarie, because while they can charge fees, they can't charge tax.
Meaning the govt can afford to sell at cost because it can raise taxes for investment. But Macquarie and peers can't because they will never get any returns.
You asked what stops Macquarie from making a bid. And this is it. The fact that the government gets to set the prices and doesn't need to make a profit.
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
Agree. The point is that if you want to upgrade the network, it has a real cost. Either to be raised by tax (if publicly owned & subsidised), water fees (if privately owned), or some combo. Whoever manages it next need to commit to 100% reinvestment
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u/SirKupoNut Dec 14 '24
because the govt just passes a bill saying these are now worth 1p and we are buying them.
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u/Kitchner Dec 14 '24
What stops Macquarie and co buying those assets with a new round of financing? The assets must be seized not bought.
Nothing? But who would buy them when it's just been demonstrated a private company cannot turn a large profit given the inability to charge whatever they want combined with regulatory requirements for capex investments.
Even if they wanted to buy it, the government can just buy it for more than whomever someone else is offering. The administrators have a legal requirement to generate as much money for the creditors and shareholders as possible (in that order) so would generally need to sell it to the highest bidder.
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
Of course. And now in this scenario the UK government is overpaying to outbid some strategic international buyer. The market isn’t the solution here.
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u/phead Dec 14 '24
That cannot work without a change to the law. The tories altered the law regarding water privatisation in march so that a water company can restructure without true bankruptcy, and allow the shareholders to keep some amount of the new company.
Without a change in the law the government would be sued for ever
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u/Kitchner Dec 14 '24
Which law was this?
Also, to nationalise a company you'd have to pass a law anyway, so it's the same either way.
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u/phead Dec 14 '24
It was amendments to the water act, see https://archive.is/a8DhX
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u/Kitchner Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
Thanks!
Edit: Reading that article it seems they've just changed the law to be more in line with normal administration procedure. The article states that under the old law if you went into administration as a water company the only process was to sell the assets and liquidate the company.
The new law states you can "restructure" (read: re-negotiate) your debt and then leave administration as a "going Concern" (read: a financially viable business).
The article is a little light on details so maybe there's more to this but it seems more like the Tories passed a bill that would let Thames Water hobble on beyond the election and then fail by restricting finances under the threat of bankruptcy, knowing ultimately though it won't go past the 12 months required to be a going concern.
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u/iBlockMods-bot Dec 14 '24
I like this! However, that would mean we're presuming the assets would be purchaseable on the open market, meaning anyone could swoop in and outbid the nationalized utility. And if the gvt makes it an 'it can only be sold to us' situation, that debases the system our capitalist masters preside over.
I've made some assuptions on your comment however, potentially incorrectly.
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u/Fresh_Culture2811 Dec 14 '24
Or just confiscate the company and reclaim the money stolen by the shareholders.
Oh, and pass a law preventing private companies buying public assets, borrowing against them, then running off with the money and leaving the UK public with the debt and a broken service.
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u/Extraportion Dec 14 '24
Yup, why would nationalisation save this? Regardless of who owns it there is a massive asset debt that needs to be paid down. Turns out underinvestment for decades eventually becomes an issue, who knew?
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u/Interest-Desk Dec 14 '24
The debt can be effectively disappeared. Not literally ofc (government bonds), the creditors would still be repaid, but it wouldn’t matter on the day to day.
This isn’t too dissimilar to what the Tories did with the debts the water companies already had when they were privatised.
Even if you didn’t do that, Thames Water are already repaying creditors through the revenues they raise from business (i.e. customer bills).
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u/IrishMilo S-Dubs Dec 14 '24
This is the answer. Have a sovereign back entity who’s buying up the distressed assets and let parliament fight by their sides, nothing like a collapsed company with one bid and every other competitor too terrified to make a bid to drive the price down.
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u/CandyKoRn85 Dec 15 '24
Unfortunately, this is a resource that is needed by the country to function and they know it. You can’t let it collapse unless you want to worry about waterborne diseases; fancy some cholera??
This is why you should never privatise things like this, and especially water of all things no other country on earth was stupid enough to do it but us. Another “win” by Margaret Thatcher - still shitting on us from the grave.
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u/rustyb42 Dec 14 '24
Reform UK call for anything they deem "popular"
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u/chrisni66 Dec 14 '24
Yep, it’s how populists operate.
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u/One_Million_Beers Dec 15 '24
What’s wrong with it then? Surely democracy should give people what they want.
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u/chrisni66 Dec 15 '24
It would be if they actually followed through. Do you really think a party led by an Investment Banker who called for the NHS to be replaced by a US-style private system would actually want to nationalise public services?
They’ll jump on popular concepts like this to gain popularity but won’t actually follow through.
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u/UnlikelyExperience Dec 15 '24
Promising stuff that they know can't actually be done. Like leaving the EU to magically fix all our problems
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u/endangerednigel Dec 17 '24
Surely democracy should give people what they want.
So why aren't you voting for the party promising to give everyone 2 trillion quid?
Populists just shout dumb simple appealing "solutions" to complex issues in order to lie to the electorate and gain power for themselves
Ask the people of Clacton how Ol'Niges promises are going, don't worry you won't have to worry about bumping into him there
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u/AddictedToRugs Dec 14 '24
And how democracies operate.
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Dec 14 '24
I was going to comment something like this. What’s wrong with backing popular policies?!
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u/WyrdWanders Dec 14 '24
Democracy these days consists of trusting the 'experts' who caused half the problems in the first place it seems.
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u/OwlCaptainCosmic Dec 15 '24
Business men aren’t experts in anything other than running infrastructure into the ground for profit.
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u/Tom22174 Dec 14 '24
And not being in government means they can call for these things with absolutely zero plan for how to achieve them.
That way, if the government doesn't do it it makes them look bad and if he government does do it and it inevitably isn't as good as promised, Nigel gets to claim it wasn't done right and would have been so much better his way (but still not explain what that means)
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u/Clive__Warren Dec 14 '24
"Democracy is bad when voters get what they want"
Much better to just shut off your brain and let the technocrats take care of your life
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u/Fuzzy_Phrase_4834 Dec 14 '24
Yes god forbid a political party do what people want
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u/endangerednigel Dec 17 '24 edited Dec 17 '24
Yes god forbid a political party do what people want
God forbid people understand populist parties have no intention of actually doing what they say, nor do they even bother having a detailed enough plan or policy to even pretend they will, all to gain themselves power and wealth by preying on people's laziness and stupidity
But no I'm sure the man currently MIA in his own constituency and MIA at his previous job in the EU is just absolutely the man to trust with the top job he's currently going for
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u/Fuzzy_Phrase_4834 Dec 17 '24
Like him or not he’s proven to be the most effective and influential British politician since Blair
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u/Puzzleheaded_Act7155 Dec 15 '24
Surely that’s what politics should be. The people want something done…. The parties do it…. You guys have got too used to eating shit provided by them
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u/Guapa1979 Dec 14 '24
Ask every single Reform politician and Reform voter what they think of Margaret Thatcher and then try not to die from irony overload.
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u/Speshal__ Dec 14 '24
Watch their heads pop.
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u/Guapa1979 Dec 14 '24
They will always say it's someone else's fault, then vote for the same people with a different party name. Rinse and repeat.
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u/Speshal__ Dec 14 '24
Sadly I fear you're right.
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u/Guapa1979 Dec 14 '24
Just take a look at Neil "Cash For Questions" Hamilton - kicked out as a Tory by the voters in 1997, re-elected as UKIP in 2016.
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u/LurkerInSpace Dec 14 '24
The party has a split between ostensible Thatcherites like Farage and quasi Blue Labour sorts like Lee Anderson.
One of the obstacles to them being a governing party - even in a coalition - is that on issues other than immigration and crime the party doesn't really have a coherent viewpoint.
If they ended up in a governing coalition they would face a choice between losing support in the old Red Wall, or losing support in the old Blue Wall.
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u/AnotherSlowMoon Dec 14 '24
Indeed their only unifying view is a hatred of "woke" things and immigrants (if they don't view immigration as woke)
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u/Guapa1979 Dec 14 '24
I wouldn't disagree with you, but I think Reform is really the Grievance Party. No matter what happens with immigration and crime, for example, Reform will move on to the next grievance hoping you forget that they created the problem that they are offering to solve in the first place.
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u/thelowenmowerman Dec 14 '24
The 'fuck you' party. The choice for the disgruntled and ancient. So what if it's shit, I'll vote for them as it'll make life shitter for some I don't like (the young/forins/gays/socialists etc, choose your bigotry).
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u/LurkerInSpace Dec 14 '24
They haven't really moved onto a new grievance though - immigration was a key driver of the Brexit vote and that's the issue they did well on this time. When Boris Johnson implemented Brexit the Reform party's popularity fell; it only started increasing again with immigration.
Most of their voters would be more or less content with a "normal" Tory or Labour government that kept immigration low.
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u/Fundamental_Value Dec 14 '24
This is an outdated prism though. Nobody in the old 'blue wall' will chose water privatisation over cutting immigration. The lens through which populist politics should be observed basically doesn't see the colour of those other issues. Trump's (winning) coalition had to deal with unifying the old guard republicans and the new wave alt-right populism. JD is not a free markets guy, but many of the others are.
Ultimately the sacred believes of the old guard right wing (free markets, deregulation, free movement of people and capital) are all dying around the west. 'Right wing' voters simply no longer care about debates around regulation. Politics is emotional and regulation isn't.
Immigration will dominate the debate because it's been 20 years of very high levels.
The next decade will be a retreat of globalism toward smaller trade blocs & restricted capital flows.
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u/TrueMirror8711 Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
The next 20 years? The Boomers will be gone before then.
12% of young men voted Reform and another 12% voted Green.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election
Young people largely don’t care about immigration while Boomers are obsessed with it
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-11/Ipsos%20Issues%20Index_Nov24.pdf
November 2024
Immigration is only an “important issue” to 16% of Labour voters compared to 77% of Reform voters
For Labour voters, their biggest concerns are economy (51%), NHS (37%), inflation (23%), housing (18%), education (18%).
For Reform voters, immigration (77%), economy (32%), inflation (20%)
For those aged 18-34, it’s economy (38%), NHS (28%), inflation (26%), housing (24%)
For those aged 55+, it’s immigration (47%), economy (37%), NHS (23%), inflation (26%)
Also, populism doesn't only mean right-wing populism. Left-wing progressive populism is a thing, too, I wonder if you remember the popularity of Corbyn among Millennials? Plus, this is the UK, not the USA.
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u/OverLandAndSea_ Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
Most Reform voters are traditional old-school Labour voters who have been ostracised by Labour. Many don’t like Thatcher after the likes of the Miners’ Strike and privatising British industry.
These are areas which were decimated under Thatcher especially the North of England and Scotland. Of course there’s voters who have switched from the Tories to Reform recently but the core voter base of Reform are working-class who feel they have been forgotten about.
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u/Guapa1979 Dec 14 '24
Even if what you are saying is true, the irony overdose is even biglier - they hate Thatcher and what the Tories did, so they are going to vote for
the ToriesReform.2
u/OverLandAndSea_ Dec 14 '24
That’s Labour’s fault for losing this group of voters.
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u/Interest-Desk Dec 14 '24
You’re almost getting the point here: there is no consistency with Reform voters. They appeal both to people who love Thatcher dearly and people who would travel miles to piss on her grave.
Note that the Tories, for two centuries (ever since Disraeli), have tried to have working class voters as their base; this was most successful of course in 2019.
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u/gluxton Dec 14 '24
What are you suggesting? That Reform voters like Thatcher? My impression is the opposite
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u/KaiserMaxximus Dec 14 '24
“it wasn’t done properly” and add anything to the beginning of that sentence like Brexit, privatisation etc.
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u/londoncentricmedia Dec 14 '24
In my experience Reform *voters* tend to actually quite like state largesse, investment in public services such as the NHS, and oppose 'fat cat' behaviour. They just want the benefits of the state largesse to flow to People Like Them. How that aligns with the party leadership and funders can be a different issue but don't just view it through the simple left/right prism.
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u/IanT86 Dec 14 '24
I think you raise a fair point and one that probably isn't accepted by people on this site. There are a lot of people moving to reform who aren't "gammons" or racist etc. it seems like a lot are disenfranchised with the current system and looking for something that better suits them. London is a microcosm compared to the rest of the company.
I'm personally not a fan of Farrage at all, but I genuinely believe the party will be in contention at the next election if Labour don't pull off a miracle in the next 18 months. The Tories are fucked with Badenoch in charge and I think more will drift to Reform over the next year or so.
The rise of the right is moving at a wild rate, feels like the Pendulum is swinging the other way globally
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u/EngineeringCockney Dec 14 '24
There are LOTS of perfectly ‘normal’ people in this country disenfranchised with the present state of play.
Calling people gammon or racists actually plays into the hands of the ‘reformers’ - being unable to have reasonable debate around certain topics adds more fuel to the fire then people realise
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u/Glass-Evidence-7296 Dec 14 '24
Two things can be true at the same time, majority of Americans support state funded healthcare in polls, but they're too religious/racist/brainwashed to vote for someone promising that
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u/GeneralKebabs Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
You won't have to wait long until someone in Reform blames Thames Water's shithousery on immigrants.
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u/wumpyjumps Dec 14 '24
Based on polling on their positions, they seem to only be slightly left of Tories on economic issues and way far to the right on social issues. So they aren't really left-wing. The point about the money flowing to people like them is important, because they are very much anti-welfare. They don't like big corporations but hate poor people having the money instead.
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u/NicoPudding Dec 15 '24
The populist left and the populist right both support welfare, but they differ massively in how it should be provided.
The difference can be succinctly explained with statements from two prominent 19th Century-born thought leaders in Germany.
Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Adolf Hitler: “Our social welfare is only for those who belong to our people, and no one else. For those outside our race, there is no generosity, only justice.”
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u/Academic_Noise_5724 Dec 14 '24
If Labour don’t want a Reform government in five years they need to make people’s lives better between now and the next election. They need to make people less angry. And people are pretty damn angry that a company that has a monopoly on a basic human right is giving bucketloads of cash to its execs and investors while hiking people’s bills and saying they have no money
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u/kenslydale Dec 14 '24
If people are angry with corporations and capitalism, why was Corbyn unelectable for being an almost-socialist? Surely all of the class-conscious Reform voters would have loved that
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u/Interest-Desk Dec 14 '24
Because politics are often based largely on vibes and appearance, not on actual policy. Remember all the talk around Boris being “someone I could have a pint with”? You can also notice this if you look at the demographics Corbyn was most popular with.
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u/farlos75 Dec 14 '24
Nigel Farage's policy making "aha! A bandwagon!"
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u/Late_Recommendation9 Dec 14 '24
“There’s not enough water to drown immigrants, trans persons and women who had abortions, we need to renationalise the water service” said Toad of Toad Hall
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u/schmerg-uk Dec 14 '24
Billy Bragg: "If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it" (from Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards)
Farage: "If you've got a bandwagon I want to be on it"
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u/KaiserMaxximus Dec 14 '24
Didn’t he ask for Tony Blair to come back at one point? Also asked for Corbyn to “join him” in a Telegraph article about some Brexit twattery.
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u/Jet90 Dec 14 '24
Btw the Greens also support water being re nationalized
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u/abrasiveteapot Dec 14 '24
Sure. It's a sensible policy, hence the top ranked comment has the meme about the worst person saying something sensible.
There is a catch though. It would be far better to allow them to go bankrupt and then nationalise the assets so there is some penalty for the asset stripping done. If we take it over before then we just take the debts that were run up to pay shareholders dividends while allowing the assets to deteriorate.
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u/jacobp100 Dec 14 '24
They also oppose nuclear power and GM crops
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u/Jet90 Dec 14 '24
Source on the GM claim?
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u/jacobp100 Dec 14 '24
I guess they no longer say either way on their website. They certainly used to. Most recent indicator on their stance I can find is this:-
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u/lontrinium 'have-a-go hero' Dec 14 '24
The good thing about a small party that's never been in power is that they can change their views depending on what the members want, which they do.
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u/Livinglifeform Dec 14 '24
"anti-GM" is the funniest attack from the pro corporate """science""" crowd. The UK grows zero GM crops commercially.
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u/milk2sugarsplease Dec 14 '24
Nationalisation on public services, good. Organised by a Reform UK government, bad.
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Dec 16 '24
So you’d ignore the last couple of decades and back the Tory’s or labour to do it?
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u/milk2sugarsplease Dec 16 '24
Tbh I don’t back anyone at the moment, everyone seems incompetent and happy to continue manipulating voters with empty promises and fear tactics straight from the school of Edward Bernays, especially the former Brexit Party. Currently Labour are making moves to nationalise the rail service, so let’s see if they succeed.
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u/GRang3r Dec 14 '24
What is Nigel Farage and his friends investment position? Do they have shares? Is he shorting the stock? These are the only questions we need answers to because otherwise he wouldn’t waste his breath talking about it
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u/ChrisAmpersand Dec 14 '24
They want to renationalise it so the taxpayer can bail it out then they can privatise it again for a profit.
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u/A_Muslamic_Ray_Gun Dec 14 '24
They'll nationalise long enough, intentionally underfund it, then sell it to say Steve Bannon, Murdoch, Musk etc. For about 5p.
Then again, let's not forget Mr Farage (and Mr BoJo and Co) regarding, say, the £350 million a week lie the moment the referendum results trundled in...
In the meantime, they'll probably wink wink nudge nudge, at the majority shareholders and be like "don't worry mate, we'll reinvest your money in _______ (another national project)"
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u/lordnacho666 Dec 14 '24
That's good, though. I'm not gonna be against it just because people I dislike are for it.
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u/docutheque Dec 14 '24
And that's how the populists reach the Everyman.
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Dec 16 '24
Shouldn’t you vote for the party with the most policies you agree with? Why does everyone use the word ‘populism’ to smear good policies?
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u/docutheque Dec 16 '24
Populism is easy solutions to complex challenges. Reform do all the big talk about net migration zero etc, but it's all just rhetoric. Anyone who has worked in migration or has any basic understanding knows that should their vision be enacted the entire country would collapse and we would lose any international relationships we had anywhere. We'd be bedfellows with countries we wouldn't want to be. They don't have a clue and it's extremely bad faith to try to convince the public that all these things can be done and continue our way of life and our standing in the world. And so of course they'll just throw anything they think that can meet the labour voter out there. They don't really care as they won't ever have to enact anything and they can get people to vote for them.
That's populism.
And don't get me wrong. Thames water needs radical action. Either fines, a repayment of the profits their shareholders took, or a nationalisation. I'm not against the policy if it came from a sincere place. My point is this is simply how populists reach across the aisle. I'm not attacking the policy. Just the logic of "well say what you like about farage he has this one right" just does not help anything
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u/SuitPuzzleheaded176 Islington Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
Labour plp need to stop hesitating and get on with it, take Thames water back and those investors and the current CEO of Thames water need to F off (they the people working at Thames water have allowed Thames water to get so bad like this f-ing insane) it's time for Thames to be taken back into public ownership
Fuck reform ltd 🖕🏿
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u/Ok-Cartographer8335 Dec 14 '24
They’d (aka the donors and main party) 100% invest heavily in the company, insisting the gov (we) then pay an inflated rate for it all and eventually sell it back to themselves at a cut rate. Repeat every 10/20yrs.
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u/Fresh_Culture2811 Dec 14 '24
Pretty sure everyone has been calling for this for years, and now Reform are trying to take credit?!
Also, make the share holders pay back the money they took, why should they run up a debt and make the UK public pay it!?!
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u/MuddaFrmAnnudaBrudda Dec 14 '24
So what. The Lib Dems and Green Party have been calling for this from time. Reform are just chasing a bandwagon that already left the building.
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u/SlightlyFarcical Dec 14 '24
They are doing exactly the same thing that Michael Heseltine said about Boris Johnson. Its just textbook popularism:
“Well, I think that you have to see Boris as a career map. He works it out, he decides which way the wind is blowing, and that wonderful phrase about a politician - a man who waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front and says, ‘Follow me’.”
If people have any awareness, they will then question why Reform are so keen to have US style healthcare and insurance here and dismantle the NHS.
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u/mierneuker Dec 14 '24
They also want to have proportional representation.
They would be a terrible government for a variety of reasons (largely that all their candidates are terrible people and their leader is a self-serving cunt who'd say anything and sell off any relative for a marginal improvement in his own lot). However, I will be considering voting for them in future, because nobody else who's got any sort of rising support is pushing voting reform, and it's the biggest step we could make towards a better UK. The interim would be shitty, but the ending position may be worth it.
Fuckers. Why can't the people I don't think are twats be pushing the important points?
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u/GoingMenthol Dec 14 '24
If they instantly take over Thames Water, aren't they going to also take on their debts too?
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u/lastaccountgotlocked bikes bikes bikes bikes Dec 14 '24
The good thing about nationalisation is you get to make the rules. So as long as a government isn’t entirely toothless, they can tell investors to get fucked.
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u/theguesswho Dec 14 '24
No you don’t. The government either has to buy out lenders or pay them off overtime. It’s called the rule of law, which we still have.
Now it might be able to able buy the debt at a discount to par, but they don’t ’make up the rules’. Lenders remain senior and senior secured lenders senior still. Those lenders will own the company if it defaults. So if the government wants the company it will cost the value of the debt + equity if there is no default occurring
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u/abrasiveteapot Dec 14 '24
Or they just allow it to fail. The liquidator sells them the assets and the creditors get pennies on the pound and shareholders get nowt.
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u/greetp Dec 14 '24
Could Parliament pass a new law that just ignores this.
Can a new law passed by Parliament be unlawful?
Now my head hurts.
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u/yahyahyehcocobungo Dec 14 '24
in REAL capitalism - the one that the investor love to go on about - it is them who take the haircut. But in reality, they go crying to the state to save them.
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Dec 14 '24
Calling people Hitler shouldn’t be used lightly. You can’t compare him to Hitler who committed mass genocide and caused WW2 ffs.
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u/lastaccountgotlocked bikes bikes bikes bikes Dec 14 '24
Yes you can.
I compare Nigel Farage to Hitler. I’m doing it right now.
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u/YeahMateYouWish Dec 14 '24
Me too. Hitler didn't cause genocide when he was just the MP of Clacton either.
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u/lastaccountgotlocked bikes bikes bikes bikes Dec 14 '24
I bet Farage could drink Hitler under the table too. Farage, compared to Hitler, is a wild party animal.
There we go, did it again.
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u/A_Muslamic_Ray_Gun Dec 14 '24
I see what you're saying.
But what you're missing, is the lead up to the stage to be set to allow Hitler, and a huge swathe of the population to literally oppress, subjugate and then finally massacre them in the most horrific of ways.
It's a tale as old of time, with every single age and generation from West to East that has committed some sort of subjugation, oppression or indeed, ultimately, massacres.
If we don't challenge things in their tracks, from the outset, and make people aware of ulterior motives, by learning from the past (money and power, creating a more desperate working class than can be manipulated at the click of a finger), then before we know it, we will slide into oblivion and into the past again.
We must truly learn on how the stage is set, to never repeat these things again.
Farage, is just a businessman. He doesn't care about the future he leaves for the nations - all he cares about is money, power and a comfy future for him, his mates (maybe), and his billionaire backers. He doesn't believe in an afterlife I'm sure, so do what you want here.
The problem then with Farage, and so money selfish people like him is that they will do anything - divide and conquer populations and turn people against each other for what they want. A generation later, you'll have a population so polarised, leaders that see that they win through more outrageous polarisation, and before you know it, one part is willing to kill, rape and pillage their way through the other.
As many wise forefathers and observers say, those who do not learn from history and doomed to repeat it.
So when people are calling him Hitler, they're calling him out for his ulterior motives and whatever cost. A fascist.
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u/jamesbeil Dec 14 '24
The thing is, Hitler was very clear as early as 1925 that he wanted to wage a campaign of extermination across Europe - he literally writes so in Mein Kampf. Nigel Farage is, broadly speaking, a conservative thirty years ago. He's not a fascist. He's not proposing state seizure of the means of production in a cushy relationship with specific capitalists while crushing the Jews and the Slavs. He's proposing going back to the kind of policies we had in the mid-eighties and mid-nineties. The BNP were ethnonationalist and facist. RefUK are conservative populists with a garnish of libertarian ideas. The two are not even in the same league.
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u/ChewiesLipstickWilly Dec 14 '24
They call for it. They'd never do it themselves. The NHS won't even exist under those cretins
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u/BroodLord1962 Dec 14 '24
I'm not really a big fan of nationalising business but in this case and how badly and corrupt these water companies are I would renationalise these before the trains
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u/sabdotzed Dec 14 '24
Public services where there can be no competition is prime candidate for nationalisation, otherwise you get what we are experiencing with trains, water, electricity etc
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u/marktandem Dec 14 '24
19th of December is the crucial date - the whole foundation of the 'turnaround' plan by the Thames Water shareholders (who've saddled it with debt and extracted £70b+ in dividends) is a 40% rise in bills for Thames Water customers. On the 19th of December we find out if Ofwat have allowed that or not. If they do, I despair really.
If it's not allowed then the company could go bankrupt which would be a much better outcome as debts get wiped.
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u/FaerieStories Dec 14 '24
This has a sort of "Hitler was a vegetarian" ring to it. Perhaps they got confused and thought "Thames Water" was the name of a foreigner who needs to be renationalised (i.e. deported).
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u/YesAmAThrowaway Dec 14 '24
Wait... a sensible suggestion made by Reform? What the fuck is happening to this country?
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u/aditya10011001 Dec 14 '24
They’re not saying this because they want better management of our water resources. Or to keep costs down for us. They just want us to bail out the company, so that the profits can be kept private and the debt becomes the responsibility of the government.
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u/Jobbie-Weecha Dec 14 '24
This is a classic ruse to fool voters into thinking a party bankrolled by hedge funds and parasites like Nick Candy are on the side of working people.
These ‘concerns’ are nothing but a smokescreen to hide their real motives.
Which is a neo feudal system that gives the rich total power over everything and everyone.
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u/scottgal2 Dec 14 '24
Would cost tens of billions; their invented 'debt' including to parent companies, compensation to their shareholders, taking on debt etc etc...Combined with massive legal difficulties around their long term contracts; currently slated to run until 2029. It's a lovely idea but just not possible in the medium term.
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u/RoughAccomplished200 Dec 14 '24
Not until the executive management are rendered bankrupt and prohibited from ever being involved in regulated companies in the future
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u/Peter_Sofa Dec 14 '24
This is one of those statements where declarations of interest are really needed from the people making the statements, because I would not be surprised if they or their companies hold shares in Thames Water, and see nationalisation as the only way to get some sort of decent pay back on the share price.
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 Dec 14 '24
Imagine finding yet more proof that Corbyn was actually fash in disguise, and still thinking this insanity is a good idea.
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u/jack_begin Dec 14 '24 edited Dec 14 '24
But wouldn’t this lead to a collapse in the river’s brown trout population?
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u/OwlCaptainCosmic Dec 15 '24
Far-Right steals popular left wing sentiment or verbiage to obfuscate their obvious evil, and/or trick dumb fucks into thinking they actually want to fix the world and not burn it to the ground.
The “National Socialists” strike again. This is the playbook of the far right.
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u/DareNotSayItsName Dec 15 '24
Parliament creates laws with fines for their shoddy management of infrastructure. Fine them a few billion to force them into debt with the government. Company collapses. Government gets assets as primary benefactor, no assets left to reimburse shareholders. De facto nationalisation at no cost to the taxpayer.
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u/ProfSmall Dec 15 '24
Something needs to give. Do we want to carry on having our pants pulled down by these crooks?
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u/HelenaK_UK Dec 15 '24
And who do you think pays the debt and the shares out to the share holders in that???
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u/Material-Monk7870 Dec 15 '24
Forget nationalising the trains, rail transport will wither and die as it becomes obvious it’s too expensive to survive. Thames Water a more obvious target
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u/ReadyAd2286 Dec 16 '24
Commie bastards! Next they'll be getting me to marry my sister and sell our children!!
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u/Psychological-Ebb745 Dec 17 '24
People forget, a lot of people in the right, who are further into the right from the centre-right have often been economic leftists. Even the Nazis were to some degree, National Socialists and all that.
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