Best Of

Just had my water bill.

Huge increase.

I reckon 17%.

WTF?

25% increase here.

Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38%
Thames Water
I'm thinking of getting a meter.

I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....

Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.

Quite right! The Government then buys the assets from the Receivers for £1.00 That's how it's supposed to work.

Administration takes time and creates disruption. Worth paying a premium to avoid that

No it isn't and this isn't a "premium" it's out and out price gouging by a monopoly supplier aided and abetted by the toothless regulator. Bankrupt the whole industry and nationalise it. Water should never have been privatised, customers have paid tens of billions in dividends to vulture capitalists and our rivers and beaches are more polluted than ever. No more dividends, no more leverage, no more private ownership of monopoly suppliers and bar the current
and previous shareholders from purchasing UK infrastructure assets for a minimum
period of 25 years.

Administration is a procedural nightmare. What we need is a quick move to a resolution.

If it takes given the equity holders 5p in the £ to get their support for a deal that avoids administration that is worth it.

No, what we need is a reckoning for the parasites. Chase them out of the country with fucking pitchforks if necessary.

The current owners are not the ones that caused the problem. They have made a terrible investment, that is all.

Macquarie, on the other hand…

Past and present shareholders across the whole industry. I mean they're still sucking dividends out to this day.

There is no good way for a universally essential public utility monopoly to be privately owned.

Government ownership, and private management is as close as you can possibly get.

Otherwise you're effectively offering rentier income. On assets the public has financed.

Dear me - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce989vygkz7o.

I expect it was a "one-off" incident for the victim too. How many such offences must there be before action is taken?

That is just astounding. WTF were they thinking?

On the other hand, it's not a work-related incident. What is the evidence he would rape his patients?

Does it matter?

Yes. Criminals need to be able to work, otherwise they will make their living through crime.

The BMA's sole role should be to assess whether doctors should be able to work professionally.

So women should just trust that their doctors are only recreational rapists, not on-the-job rapists?

Have you ever encountered the concept of a “position of trust”? Safeguarding?

Just had my water bill.

Huge increase.

I reckon 17%.

WTF?

25% increase here.

Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38%
Thames Water
I'm thinking of getting a meter.

I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....

Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.

Quite right! The Government then buys the assets from the Receivers for £1.00 That's how it's supposed to work.

Administration takes time and creates disruption. Worth paying a premium to avoid that

No it isn't and this isn't a "premium" it's out and out price gouging by a monopoly supplier aided and abetted by the toothless regulator. Bankrupt the whole industry and nationalise it. Water should never have been privatised, customers have paid tens of billions in dividends to vulture capitalists and our rivers and beaches are more polluted than ever. No more dividends, no more leverage, no more private ownership of monopoly suppliers and bar the current
and previous shareholders from purchasing UK infrastructure assets for a minimum
period of 25 years.

Administration is a procedural nightmare. What we need is a quick move to a resolution.

If it takes given the equity holders 5p in the £ to get their support for a deal that avoids administration that is worth it.

No, what we need is a reckoning for the parasites. Chase them out of the country with fucking pitchforks if necessary.

Just had my water bill.

Huge increase.

I reckon 17%.

WTF?

25% increase here.

Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38%
Thames Water
I'm thinking of getting a meter.

I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....

Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.

Quite right! The Government then buys the assets from the Receivers for £1.00 That's how it's supposed to work.

Administration takes time and creates disruption. Worth paying a premium to avoid that

No it isn't and this isn't a "premium" it's out and out price gouging by a monopoly supplier aided and abetted by the toothless regulator. Bankrupt the whole industry and nationalise it. Water should never have been privatised, customers have paid tens of billions in dividends to vulture capitalists and our rivers and beaches are more polluted than ever. No more dividends, no more leverage, no more private ownership of monopoly suppliers and bar the current
and previous shareholders from purchasing UK infrastructure assets for a minimum
period of 25 years.

Administration is a procedural nightmare. What we need is a quick move to a resolution.

If it takes given the equity holders 5p in the £ to get their support for a deal that avoids administration that is worth it.

No, what we need is a reckoning for the parasites. Chase them out of the country with fucking pitchforks if necessary.

The current owners are not the ones that caused the problem. They have made a terrible investment, that is all.

Macquarie, on the other hand…

Past and present shareholders across the whole industry. I mean they're still sucking dividends out to this day.

Dear me - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce989vygkz7o.

I expect it was a "one-off" incident for the victim too. How many such offences must there be before action is taken?

That is just astounding. WTF were they thinking?

Rape is presumably okay, if the victim is not a patient.

Would the same principle apply to murder?

I don't think the Doctor concerned has been convicted or even charged with rape.

If the police couldn't even reach the threshold for charging, I'm not sure the medical authorities should be going around making "balance of probability" decisions that he did it:

"Police investigated but did not charge Dr Foy-Yamah, but the Medical Tribunal Practitioners Service (MPTS) concluded on the balance of probabilities that he had raped the woman - which he denies."

Just had my water bill.

Huge increase.

I reckon 17%.

WTF?

25% increase here.

Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38%
Thames Water
I'm thinking of getting a meter.

I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....

Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.

Quite right! The Government then buys the assets from the Receivers for £1.00 That's how it's supposed to work.

Administration takes time and creates disruption. Worth paying a premium to avoid that

No it isn't and this isn't a "premium" it's out and out price gouging by a monopoly supplier aided and abetted by the toothless regulator. Bankrupt the whole industry and nationalise it. Water should never have been privatised, customers have paid tens of billions in dividends to vulture capitalists and our rivers and beaches are more polluted than ever. No more dividends, no more leverage, no more private ownership of monopoly suppliers and bar the current
and previous shareholders from purchasing UK infrastructure assets for a minimum
period of 25 years.

Administration is a procedural nightmare. What we need is a quick move to a resolution.

If it takes given the equity holders 5p in the £ to get their support for a deal that avoids administration that is worth it.

No, what we need is a reckoning for the parasites. Chase them out of the country with fucking pitchforks if necessary.

The current owners are not the ones that caused the problem. They have made a terrible investment, that is all.

Macquarie, on the other hand…

Past and present shareholders across the whole industry. I mean they're still sucking dividends out to this day.

They have made an investment and are entitled to a return on that.

The basic failure here was (a) ZIRP, (b) OFWAT repeatedly mispricing debt - they relied on market calculations of WACC but Macquarie regularly achieved better than expected in the market; (c) OFWAT not regulating leverage; and (d) OFWAT allowing dividends to be paid when there was a capex backlog

Basically Macquarie ran rings around OFWAT. The government should blacklist them for a decade. Problem is they are one of the most connected infra investors and we need infra funds to invest in the UK

Surely no-one is entitled to return from an investment. If you fuck up, you lose your shirt. Profit is the reward for risk.

WTAF???

@NOELreports

🇺🇸 Fox News host Jesse Watters: “We don’t need friends. If we have to burn some bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, so be it. We’re big boys. We dropped bombs on Japan, and now they’re our ally. America isn’t handcuffed by history.”

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905927108712386791

Time to batten down the hatches. If our principal ally has gone rogue we neen a new one. China or the EU. I'd prefer either to Trump's America

You can't despise Trump more than I do, but to suggest what America under Trump is doing is as bad as what China is doing to the Uighers and Tibetans, or indeed the people of Hong Kong, is simply nonsensical. Cosying up to China to distance ourselves from America would be like trying to bargain with a rattlesnake to take on an enormous blundering elephant.

Perhaps a better analogy is a rattlesnake living quietly resting under a rock or an out of control elephant with a red hot poker shoved up its bum

Or at the next election and a two horse race between Farage and Jenrick, who would I vote for with a gun to my head? Well, probably Farage, as I don't believe British politics has seen anyone quite so evil ( Braverman excepted, which goes without saying) since Alan B'Stard.

Jenrick. I would leave the UK and live in France full time and without hesitation if Farage ever became PM. Jenrick is just an opportunist who will be found out. I'd put Braverman in the Farage category but not quite Jenrick

Would you leave France if Le Pen became President?

You're assuming (and Roger is claiming) that it's about politics. But Roger would have his beloved EU citizenship by now if he'd taken up residence in France in 2016. So we all know it's about tax.

No it isn't it's about friends and family. I have very little interest in tax having been ridiculously overpaid for several years

Foreign students in US are this afternoon receiving emails revoking visa due to social media record.

That’s it. We are not going.

I cancelled my trip to Vegas Grand Prix that was due this November.

I cannot take the risk.

A good boy like you would have been totally out of place with all those strippers and all that gambling anyway...

Actually, there's very little of that these days though you can find it if you look hard enough.

I won't go back to America until the exchange rate improves - nothing to do with the politics, $1.28 is not good enough to live well in Vegas - first time we went, back in the mid-2000s, we got $2.05 and lived like kings. Vegas also seems to have absorbed more inflation than most and while we could eat at Denny's, I don't go to Vegas to eat at Denny's and if I have to win $150 to afford a decent dinner, that's a challenge.

Ukraine can produce up to 5M FPV drones per year, with over 150 domestic manufacturers and one factory making 4K drones daily. Drones now account for 85% of frontline strikes, and Ukraine has surpassed Russia in UAV production. The main challenge remains funding, with only 2M drones produced last year due to shortages.

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1905988411346825410?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Money and patience is what is required by the western world.

We should sign an exclusive drone export deal with Ukraine for our armed forces (and mountain rescue teams, police , businesses etc etc) over c10 years in exchange for whatever cash they need right now to get production to 5 million.