Thames Water demise has been a long time coming since Water privatisation in 1989. 

Its become one of the worst water companies for sewage leakages and you just need to walk along the Thames to see this clearly in West London. Data released by the Environment Agency shows a rise of 136 per cent in the number of sewage spills lasting more than 24 hours by Thames Water. 

Water leakages around about a fifth and resultant records levels of road works on the streets of Central London – ask any black cabbie and they will confirm this! They have even caused surface water floods in areas like Maida Vale, W9 with their new investments!  

It has also created a mountain of debt – £ 18 billion since 1989 when its debt was wiped out then before privatisation, so that 25 per per pound is used to service the debt by from customer water bills. And now the boss of Thames Water now saying that bills need to rise by 40 per cent by 2030; continue to let shareholders to take out dividends and they want to be off the hook on sewage leakages, regulation fines and restrictions. 

Thames Water ought to be allowed to go bankrupt and thereby run by an administrator. The shareholders would lose their equity but as they took to much cash out so deserve no sympathy and the bond holders would face a partial loss. That is capitalism, and it should not affect the water supply. 

For sure it wont be so simple. This is total failure of privatisation and regulation by OFWAT. Why on earth were they sold state assets on the cheap and then allowed to borrow billions and take those billions out as dividends? These “genius” financial engineers were much too smart for ministers or regulators. 

The privatisation of water in the late 1980s, was neo-liberalism going too far. 

Nowhere else in the world runs water the way that England does, it is an extreme ideological experiment. Water is a natural monopoly. Thames Water’s 15 million “customers” have no choice as consumers.

Right now the government seems to be planning to bail out Thames Water. By changing the rules on water company insolvency to allow temporary nationalisation and returning to private hands without cost. This while the Lib Dems call for special adminstration when it was last discussed at a parliamentary debate. This would be financially irresponsible and morally wrong to appease global capital and their allegiance to trickle down economics. Its an outrage and unsustainable situation for the people and the environment.

So an idea for our times – nationalise it and then mutualise it with millions of households as shareholders. 7 out of 10 people believe water belongs in public ownership. So lets not bail out Thames Water and take it back permanently. Now that would be appropriate way to end 14 of Tory rule and see the end of neo-liberal economics, a legacy of Thatcherism. Now that would truly be a new dawn.  

A version of this blog was also published in the  LabourHub as well, as can be seen below  

Bring Thames Water into public ownership!