Stains on Thames

One of my favourite PR stories, and I am not sure if it is true so don’t quote me, is that the town of Staines wanted to improve its image. It was told in no uncertain terms by some very expensive image consultants that the very name Staines was the problem and so it changed it to “Staines on Thames”.

Which must be classed as wilfully missing the point.

But that brings me to Thames Water, another image problem for the consultants and one far more difficult to solve.

Thames is in serious difficulty, how you manage to be at risk of going bust when you have a guaranteed income from tens of millions of customers for years to come is beyond me but the point is; if it does go to the wall the tax payer is going to have to pick up the bill.

Why we should do this is totally beyond me. This company was privatised, debt free, decades ago. It has apparently been regulated all that time and yet it has managed to send billions abroad to its owners, borrow at extortionate rates, under invest and pump untreated sewage into the rivers and coastal waters of the country.

But we have to pick up the tab.

Maybe next time we privatise something we should make it clear that the regulation will be intense, creative accounting banned, foreign ownership curtailed, borrowing scrutinised, environmental standards enforced, capital spending hiked, the board members hand picked in public by a Select Committee, state representation maintained and profits limited.

But then who would buy it? And that is the crux of the problem with the privatisation of utilities.

It is the privatisation of the outrageous profits made by monopoly suppliers, the debt and the obligations rest with the taxpayer even though they have no control over them. Simply because the government cannot let London, or anywhere else run out of clean drinking water or gas or electricity for so much as one day.

The whole thing is a con on the taxpayer and always was. The profit was privatised, the risk was not.

Billions has been syphoned off previously dry-as-dust, boring, utilities. They have outspent their regulators’ legal budget, captured the regulators, hired the regulators and relied on the legacy of Thatcherism to maintain the political support to keep their businesses private, until they have squeezed the last pennies out of it.

And still no one is willing to even debate or discuss nationalisation, or private/public partnership or community ownership.

We still have to maintain the farce that private is always best, well when running essential monopolies it is just about the worst option.

Margaret Thatcher was wrong, Thames Water is a stain on her reputation.

Jonty’s Jottings

Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.

By Jonty Bloom Media