Apparently, having checked, it would not need new legislation. Ofwat already has the power to revoke licences for non performance - which I suspect you could easily demonstrate for almost all of the companies. Especially as insolvency is one of the reasons to revoke said licences.
Of course Ofwat like all the other Of* regulators is spineless so I would not hold my breath.
That would leave the shareholders with a worthless shell of a company but I reckon they’ve had their moneys worth over the years.
DEFRA have estimated the cost of nationalising the water sector at £100 billion should it be done by purchasing the equity and taking on the current debt.
Billy’s idea obviously seems far cheaper but I’d imagine the water companies would take immediate legal action which would tie up courts for years at great cost to the taxpayer.
The political fall out might be significant though given that a lot of the shareholders are overseas entities and £100billion worth of value is alot to wipe off various markets overnight.
But I reckon we ought to let one go to the wall pour encourager les autres.
The bigger practical problem is settiing up a new utility company from scratch in a very short time-frame.
Consider Thames water, it’s broke (having given all our money to it’s shareholders) so no problem taking it away. It is in the publics interest to do so and as the bastards plan is to increase our water bills by up to 40% to cover the cost of a bail out loan. Who will lend the money and get a fine return?
So the water companies take the water from rivers and reservoirs, both surface and subterranean, but to whom does that water belong ? The water fell onto the land belonging to the country, so is not the water the property of the country ? OK, so the water companies purify and distribute the water, and indeed they should be paid for that task, but how much are they paying to the country for the water that belongs to the country in the first place ?
Water falls from the sky and belongs to all of us — NOT the water companies.
I could list a dozen major issues that need fixing right now in the UK but none them will likely happen in my lifetime as no government for the foreseeable future will be brave enough to take the hard decisions to reverse the damage caused by 40+ years of poor management.
This discussion is about the dire state of the water sector but could so easily be about housing, energy, education or the NHS which are all struggling. What we need are politicians with vision and drive yet we have been encumbered with incompetents and crooks for decades.
Let’s not forget that we voted for them. If people are going to vote for people making undeliverable promises of lower taxation and better services then we get what we deserve.
I think such words are multifaceted, and very adaptable. I was using the word to describe a physical object, were you to use the same word to describe me, you would be describing a characteristic. If I was to utter it after hitting my finger with a hammer, I think that utilisation is more akin to a swearing.
I think “bolox” would fall into the same category I’m sure there’s a paper published somewhere on this topic
Time for a joke. A rather uneducated man goes to a posh restaurant. He gets to the dessert course and sees “gateaux” and asks the waiter for gatox. Gateaux sir. It says gatox here. No, sir, gateaux. Well. I’ll have some. £15 sir. Well, bollo to that.
Are we still using this distasteful nickname? I can’t abide the woman but all this does is make the person saying it appear to be a chauvinistic pillock, whether that was the way they intended it to used or not. There is so much to criticise her for that it seems bizarre that this is all people can say.
That’s the point - you’re reducing figures of power to make them trivial, menial. There’s nothing obviously funny about RR’s name, but there are allegations that she’s not anything like as well qualified and experienced as she claimed to be. It’s all intended to be cruel and distasteful, and I don’t see why it’s worse to demean her than it is to demean others.
I’m sure there’s a paper published somewhere on this topic 