Thames Water fined £122.7m in biggest ever penalty

Comments

• deadcatbounce@reddthat.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Thanks Water immediately raise prices to cover it. Ditto Anglian Water.

  Nationalise it, accounting for the infrastructure deficit rerouted to dividends. De-gravy train it.

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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They can’t be raised to cover it.

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  • Officer_Pickles@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Prices cannot be increased to cover it.

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    • deadcatbounce@reddthat.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Those might be the rules, but I was a child when the rules last actually applied or were applied.

      No-one with any ability as a politician will go anywhere near politics this century. And when I say ability I mean moral compass.

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• tetris11@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Oh no, how ever will they financially recover.

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• shath@hexbear.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  lmao we’re just going to give it back to them in subsides

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• seven_phone@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And given a three billion pound handout.

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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Not from the government they haven’t.

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• PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Now start jailing the executives responsible

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• egonallanon@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Just nationalise it you cowards. Take it away from them.

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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nationalising now would cost hundreds of billions.

    Or, if you went down the banana republic route of forcibly nationalising without any compensation, and ignored the laws that currently prevent that, investment into the UK would plummet.

    Investment in the UK already took a big hit from Brexit, we don’t need to make it worse.

    The government is already the operator of last resort for the water companies. That means if the companies go bust any nobody steps in to buy them, the government takes over automatically.

    I say the government should state they won’t be bailing out these water companies if they fail. That’s how it should be for any private investment.

    When Thames and others go bust, the government steps in and takes over automatically as Operator Of Last Resort, with a tremendously lower cost to public finances.

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  • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Honestly, if Honestly, if we nationalized now. The debtors would expect the gov to pay. And it would be hard to refuse. At least without harming our national credit/trust.

    Let the fuckers go bankrupt. Spend some time letting the military have to provide clean water. Aka 70s stand pipes.

    Then rebuild them as a nationalized company. This way the debtors cannot claim Thames water was anything but a dumb investment on their part.

    It is very likely the extra 3b they just borrowed was only allowed because the banks consider potential nationalisation a risk reduction strategy. Fuck letting them screw taxpayers by funding failing companies. we nationalized now. The debtors would expect the gov to pay. And it would be hard to refuse. At least without harming our national credit/trust.

    Let the fuckers go bankrupt. Spend some time letting the military have to provide clean water. Aka 70s stand pipes.

    Then rebuild them as a nationalized company. This way the debtors cannot claim Thames water was anything but a dumb investment on their part.

    It is very likely the extra 3b they just borrowed was only allowed because the banks consider potential nationalisation a risk reduction strategy. Fuck letting them screw taxpayers by funding failing companies.

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    • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The great thing about nationalizing something is you can just tell the debt collectors to fuck off.

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  • casmael@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The fact that private companies exist to sell water is clearly insane to be honest.

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    • DrCake@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Especially as there’s no competition. At least then they couldn’t just put up bills to cover it as you’d just switch, like energy.

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• Naich@lemmings.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So they recoup the fine from customers and carry on as before?

  Fuck, just nationalise it already.

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  • cook_pass_babtridge@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They’re not allowed to raise prices, so they’ll just get in more debt and we’ll have to bail them out again, giving a bunch more UK taxpayer money to US hedge funds.

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  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They aren’t allowed to raise their prices.

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  • Officer_Pickles@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They can’t increase prices to pay off the fine.

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  • jonne@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    They’ll nationalise it and make the government pay the fine to itself.

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