I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
As I said below, I think this is something the committee needs to be very careful about. The people commenting are not Officers of the Court, and I'm also unsure they should be treated as such.
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
It's not particularly easy to get a good picture of the extent of the problems as the most recent published Ofwat financial stability report is for 2021/22, before the interest rate hit.
Presumably the water utilities are not the only zombie companies loaded with debt that they will struggle to finance at higher interest rates.
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
Hard to disagree to be fair though gross incompetence is not the sole preserve of the conservative party as time will tell
It's not, but even a reversion to normal levels of competence and graft will be a meaningful improvement on the status quo.
That's what's so infuriating about the Conservatives right now.
This is not just a tory issue its a how the country is run issue. The same bunch of people are in power and bar a bit of spin follow the same policies. Macquarie who are getting criticised for Thames debt bought the company in 2006 under Blair. Blair Brown Cameron Boris none of them have have actually done that much to reform the state and address its fundamental weaknesses.
As I observed yesterday.
Our most intractable problems are at least a couple of decades in the making. We need to realise that it will take as long to sort them out, and stop pretending it can be done in an electoral cycle or two. But it needs to be started on now.
The disaster in the water industry is yet another example of the negative consequences of super low interest rates imposed by the BoE for more than a decade after the GFC. Basically, the model was that they could borrow at super low rates, invest a chunk of that money with the statutory right of a higher rate of return on it through water bills and take the surplus off as dividends. The whole model is predicated on interest rates being below the rate of return. How could anyone ever think this was going to be the case indefinitely?
Why would the people who have walked off with wheelbarrows full of cash care about the long term?
Of course they don’t. It has been a fabulously successful business for them. But the regulators…sheez.
The regulators who've operated a revolving door of getting into bed with those they're regulating?
Seems like they've had a successful 'career' too.
Regulation doesn't work as well as the market does. If the market means that Thames Water dies and bondholders face a £14bn haircut, then they ought to be more careful in what they invest in next time. That's the market working, not failing.
Treating any firm as "too big to fail" destroys the market principles.
When/if Thames Water fails who or what, in your perfect scenario, delivers the relevant utility services. The administrators? The state?
Back when I worked in Big Oil, not long after 9/11, an analysis was done of the effect of the complete destruction of the London HQ.
The stupid consultancy employed reported the truth. The companies world wide operations would be entirely unaffected.
Stupid, because the report was binned and the company put on the “don’t hire” list. By the people at the top of the tower they had declared to be a waste of money..
Well, at least they were better than the DfE if things were only 'unaffected' rather than 'dramatically improved.'
They did include the loss of the building, which was actually owned by the company in question. On the flip side, even after payouts to relatives of the dead, the pension fund would be massively better off…
It was kind of interesting to see the extreme detail they had gone into. Including the effect of the death of everyone in my business unit…
Blimey, the penalties for failure in F1 are more serious than I realised:
formation will get two new managers, and it is uncertain whether the duo of de Vries and Tsunoda will still exist next year.
DeVries is the latest shit driver over-promoted and drowning in F1. Will he make the end of this season is the valid question, not will he have a seat at RedBull2 next year.
F1 needs to take so many cues from Indycar. Having 3 or 4 cars in one team is fine, but drop the pretence that the teams manufacture everything bar the engine. Its a lie, stop pretending otherwise.
What fans want is racing, so lets go to a single chassis. OR go the other way and let teams build what they want. Either way, and end to this pitiful crap. Last weekend we watched Indycar live and then F1 as live afterwards. It really highlighted how tedious F1 is.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
The veteran City chairman Sir Adrian Montague has been lined up to chair the troubled Thames Water, The Times can reveal.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
God, if I liked Red Bull I might put a few offers in.
Incidentally, an ex-colleague of mine used to work for Renault, and he had used a couple of carbon fibre brake disks on his desk at work as paperweights.
I’ve always wanted to make a coffee table, out of a couple of F1 wheels and a piece of glass.
I think I’ll have to make do with a wheel nut paperweight for now though. Except they’re going to be made of Titanium aren’t they, and weigh about three grams each?
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" that would be free speech.
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which of our neighbours has operated successfully by bailing out failed businesses?
The veteran City chairman Sir Adrian Montague has been lined up to chair the troubled Thames Water, The Times can reveal.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
The veteran City chairman Sir Adrian Montague has been lined up to chair the troubled Thames Water, The Times can reveal.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
Annuity rates have shot up this year, and that may well make more schemes solvent.
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" that would be free speech.
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Indeed. A right to say it and a right to expect the consequences.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Oh FFS! That's what it means to be a shareholder. They've taken the dividends so now they can bloody well pay for the losses. We don't need more incompetently run arrogant groups thinking they are Too Big To Fail.
If Starmer's Labour does not get that what's the point of it?
Quite simply Labour are terrified of taking these companies / assets / services back onto the public books. Will take up £lots of cash which they need to spend elsewhere.
What they seem to miss - surely for reasons of electoral timidity - is that the StateCo model works. Already in the UK we have various foreign StateCo's running "privatised" services like trains and buses and deliveries and utililities.
The solution is to do the same. StateCo, run commercially but state owned. No more billions of public money walked off into the right people's pockets.
Yes, maybe we should get the NHS to take TW over, and show us how well a StateCo works.
The NHS is not a StateCo. Deutsche Bahn (Arriva) is. La Poste (DPD) is. State owned commercial enterprise. Not state-run as we embarrassingly have been doing these last few years running the likes of Transpennine Express into the ground.
My brother who lives in Germany will tell you DB is a total shower of shite and fail to run effective services. As for La Poste...
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
Isn't "Kangaroo Court" racist against marsupials??
Blimey, the penalties for failure in F1 are more serious than I realised:
formation will get two new managers, and it is uncertain whether the duo of de Vries and Tsunoda will still exist next year.
DeVries is the latest shit driver over-promoted and drowning in F1. Will he make the end of this season is the valid question, not will he have a seat at RedBull2 next year.
F1 needs to take so many cues from Indycar. Having 3 or 4 cars in one team is fine, but drop the pretence that the teams manufacture everything bar the engine. Its a lie, stop pretending otherwise.
What fans want is racing, so lets go to a single chassis. OR go the other way and let teams build what they want. Either way, and end to this pitiful crap. Last weekend we watched Indycar live and then F1 as live afterwards. It really highlighted how tedious F1 is.
But he doesn't deserve to have his existence terminated just for that, surely?
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare an average of all our neighbours on economic, social and investment metrics, to us. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany Belgium and France.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
Yes, I agree.
This is one of the reasons why I think the government may be panicking. If Thames Water goes down it potentially exposes a major regulatory failure in both water *and* pensions. And pensions are in a very bad way already.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Ah ESG where Philip Morris who make products which kill people score higher than Tesla who make produuts which reduce CO2
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Oh FFS! That's what it means to be a shareholder. They've taken the dividends so now they can bloody well pay for the losses. We don't need more incompetently run arrogant groups thinking they are Too Big To Fail.
If Starmer's Labour does not get that what's the point of it?
Quite simply Labour are terrified of taking these companies / assets / services back onto the public books. Will take up £lots of cash which they need to spend elsewhere.
What they seem to miss - surely for reasons of electoral timidity - is that the StateCo model works. Already in the UK we have various foreign StateCo's running "privatised" services like trains and buses and deliveries and utililities.
The solution is to do the same. StateCo, run commercially but state owned. No more billions of public money walked off into the right people's pockets.
Yes, maybe we should get the NHS to take TW over, and show us how well a StateCo works.
The NHS is not a StateCo. Deutsche Bahn (Arriva) is. La Poste (DPD) is. State owned commercial enterprise. Not state-run as we embarrassingly have been doing these last few years running the likes of Transpennine Express into the ground.
My brother who lives in Germany will tell you DB is a total shower of shite and fail to run effective services. As for La Poste...
Re La Poste, perhaps - living in Germany - he should try Deutsche Post instead?
Also, no one has a good word about Deutsche Bank, do they?
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Do we? I mean, look at the stories overnight from France and tell me that we have worse social issues than they do.
It is *really* hard to compare countries, especially when looking at how they might progress in the long term.
(Note; I'm not claiming we do not face significant issues, just that many countries face significant issues as well. We are far from unique.)
The veteran City chairman Sir Adrian Montague has been lined up to chair the troubled Thames Water, The Times can reveal.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
How many SKS fans does it take to argue for renationalizing a water company.
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
How many SKS fans does it take to argue for renationalizing a water company.
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as “safe” without much attention paid to them. Yes, many pension funds will have put all their eggs in one basket.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
The veteran City chairman Sir Adrian Montague has been lined up to chair the troubled Thames Water, The Times can reveal.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
On Susan Trump running for the Tories in London - as others are suggesting she is basically all the party have left. Nutjobs spewing lunacy in the mistaken belief that everyone who is right-thinking agrees with them.
I had expected Sunak to clean the house a little - a firm directional change, tack to the centre to win back those critical votes whilst throwing enough populist bones to the red wall Brexiteers to keep them Tory.
Instead he's managing to pander to all the extremes enough to drive away more voters whilst simultaneously not pandering to the extremes enough to keep them on board. We're going to see a choice of conservative parties on the ballot (unless they manage to pull SDPKIPREFCLAIM together as the "Britannia Party" or some other proto-fascist outfit and actually campaign on the policies that right-thinking people want.
The "respectable" hard right used to be a minority faction both in votes and in politics. Despite Brexit making it briefly feel bigger than it is, the "sink the migrants / support our veterans" mob are still only a small vote. Yet currently has 3 parties vying for its vote plus the lunatic wing of the Tories resolutely dragging them in the same direction, that pro-gollywog vote being precious. Madness piled on madness.
Isn't it just a case of Boris/Brexit hollowing out the sane Tories which makes it very difficult to recover to a more central position and broad church.
QTWAIN.
Boris at the last election had a broad church central position which attracted one of the highest shares of the vote in England recorded in the past half century. Higher even than Tony Blair achieved.
No "centrists" got kicked out, the only people who lost the whip were a few diehard zealots who voted against the whip on a confidence motion on Europe which is not a "centrist" position whatsoever.
I disagree, although not with the specific logic of your two points.
Your 2nd point is valid, but it is this group (and associates) that made up the centrists in the Tory party and most have gone. The reality is (and this is a generalisation) the left of the Tory party were pro remain and the right pro leave. As a consequence the right now has more sway.
I would disagree that Boris won on broad church central position. In my opinion, and one held by many is that Boris won for two reasons - Get Brexit done and Corbyn. That is not a broad church centrist position, although an excellent campaigning position at the time.
I find it difficult to argue that a lot of Tories from the left have not been driven out and that the two main causes are Boris and Brexit. They have and these are the two main reasons.
Sorry but that's a rewriting of history by those who loved to consider being pro-Europe to be the "centrist" position.
In what possible way was Dominic Grieve a part of the Tory "left"?
He didn't even vote for same sex marriage. Boris Johnson supported same sex marriage, along with David Cameron, but Dominic Grieve did not and yet Grieve is this great centrist? Why?
The idea he was this great liberal/left Tory is only because people who embrace pro-EU love to claim that.
Bart, You seem to have missed 5 critical words in my post which are: 'and this is a generalisation'
Are you really suggesting that in general the following statement is not true:
The left of the Tory party was more pro Remain and the right more pro Leave
There is no criticism in that statement. Just a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I don't think we need to resort to lists or exceptions to conclude that do we?
No, I don't accept that generalisation.
Theresa "Go Home" May was pro-Remain, and I would never once consider her to be on the left of the Party.
I believe from memory a majority of Tory MPs in 2016 were pro-Remain, but they overwhelmingly accepted the democratic will of the country and moved on. The die hard zealots who voted against leaving the EU on a confidence motion in 2019 and lost the whip as a result were not particularly left wing, and not representative of Remain backing MPs.
OK I accept that. I mean I accept we aren't going to agree on whether Boris and Brexit has alienated the more left wing element of the Tory party or not and that we are disagreeing on that opinion and not the logical conclusion of those opinions. I accept your conclusions based upon your opinion, although I think your opinion is wrong.
And of course that is the nature of politics. I tend to strongly agree with 75% of your opinions and disagree strongly with 25% of your opinions. I do find it interesting that I never have a 'meh' view on anything you say. It is either a very strong thumbs up or I think it is rubbish . I notice @Richard_Tyndall liked one of your posts to me. I have a very similar reaction to Richard, actually even more so. In his case it is more like 99% strongly agree, but on Brexit nope.
Finally on a specific - Theresa May. I agree not on the left, but again I was talking generalisations not specifics. I would also however not consider May to be on the right of the party either, but more middle of the road Tory. She is/was however authoritarian as a Home Secretary and very stubborn so I can understand from your (and my) far more libertarian view point unacceptable, but for a traditional Tory like @HYUFD probably an acceptable middle of the road Tory.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Do we? I mean, look at the stories overnight from France and tell me that we have worse social issues than they do.
It is *really* hard to compare countries, especially when looking at how they might progress in the long term.
(Note; I'm not claiming we do not face significant issues, just that many countries face significant issues as well. We are far from unique.)
France has much worse ethnocultural issues than us. On almost every other social and economic metric, though, they're doing better.
This is even more pronounced in the rest of northwestern europe.
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
How many SKS fans does it take to argue for renationalizing a water company.
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
Bring back Jezza
Jezza won precisely FOUR more seats in 2017 than Gordo did in 2010!
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
Yes, I agree.
This is one of the reasons why I think the government may be panicking. If Thames Water goes down it potentially exposes a major regulatory failure in both water *and* pensions. And pensions are in a very bad way already.
The recent argument from UCU and UCEA (one of the few things, maybe only thing, they agree on) has been that USS regulation has been too heavy and assessments too pessimistic - i.e. that things would be better if USS had less need to show solvency under different scenarioes and could assume better investment returns. Would be disconcerting if the one thing they both agree on is something they're both wrong about.
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Oh FFS! That's what it means to be a shareholder. They've taken the dividends so now they can bloody well pay for the losses. We don't need more incompetently run arrogant groups thinking they are Too Big To Fail.
If Starmer's Labour does not get that what's the point of it?
Quite simply Labour are terrified of taking these companies / assets / services back onto the public books. Will take up £lots of cash which they need to spend elsewhere.
What they seem to miss - surely for reasons of electoral timidity - is that the StateCo model works. Already in the UK we have various foreign StateCo's running "privatised" services like trains and buses and deliveries and utililities.
The solution is to do the same. StateCo, run commercially but state owned. No more billions of public money walked off into the right people's pockets.
Yes, maybe we should get the NHS to take TW over, and show us how well a StateCo works.
The NHS is not a StateCo. Deutsche Bahn (Arriva) is. La Poste (DPD) is. State owned commercial enterprise. Not state-run as we embarrassingly have been doing these last few years running the likes of Transpennine Express into the ground.
My brother who lives in Germany will tell you DB is a total shower of shite and fail to run effective services. As for La Poste...
Re La Poste, perhaps - living in Germany - he should try Deutsche Post instead?
Also, no one has a good word about Deutsche Bank, do they?
Deutsche Bahn also has a poor reputation, in Germany.
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" that would be free speech.
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Indeed. A right to say it and a right to expect the consequences.
Free speech is only free speech if you don't face "consequences" from those in authority you are criticising, so long as you're not breaking any laws in doing so.
If I say that the PM is a dictator, then he puts me in prison as a consequence for saying that, then that shows I am correct and is not free speech.
Consequences from the electorate, or others, is entirely reasonable. Consequences from those in authority whom you are criticising, not so much.
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Oh FFS! That's what it means to be a shareholder. They've taken the dividends so now they can bloody well pay for the losses. We don't need more incompetently run arrogant groups thinking they are Too Big To Fail.
If Starmer's Labour does not get that what's the point of it?
Quite simply Labour are terrified of taking these companies / assets / services back onto the public books. Will take up £lots of cash which they need to spend elsewhere.
What they seem to miss - surely for reasons of electoral timidity - is that the StateCo model works. Already in the UK we have various foreign StateCo's running "privatised" services like trains and buses and deliveries and utililities.
The solution is to do the same. StateCo, run commercially but state owned. No more billions of public money walked off into the right people's pockets.
Yes, maybe we should get the NHS to take TW over, and show us how well a StateCo works.
The NHS is not a StateCo. Deutsche Bahn (Arriva) is. La Poste (DPD) is. State owned commercial enterprise. Not state-run as we embarrassingly have been doing these last few years running the likes of Transpennine Express into the ground.
My brother who lives in Germany will tell you DB is a total shower of shite and fail to run effective services. As for La Poste...
Re La Poste, perhaps - living in Germany - he should try Deutsche Post instead?
Also, no one has a good word about Deutsche Bank, do they?
Deutsche Bahn also has a poor reputation, in Germany.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
Presumably dividends have been paid on the bonds, so far - and no one would want the shares in the last two or three years.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
Unless, of course the company is growing like Amazon.
Edit: Warren Buffet has always attributed his success to defining a small set of sensible metrics for the value of a company. And not going “but in this case..”, the way the Wall Street geniuses do.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
Mentioning pension fund managers and functioning brains, in the same sentence?
(Yes, from a quick search it does appear that they suspended external dividends after 2017).
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
Yes, I agree.
This is one of the reasons why I think the government may be panicking. If Thames Water goes down it potentially exposes a major regulatory failure in both water *and* pensions. And pensions are in a very bad way already.
The recent argument from UCU and UCEA (one of the few things, maybe only thing, they agree on) has been that USS regulation has been too heavy and assessments too pessimistic - i.e. that things would be better if USS had less need to show solvency under different scenarioes and could assume better investment returns. Would be disconcerting if the one thing they both agree on is something they're both wrong about.
My entirely non-expert view is that every recent stress test of a pension fund has actually been if anything much too optimistic.
I would have said that's particularly the case for something like the USS which has such very tightly defined liabilities.
It also appears to be being shockingly badly run, and if a former regulator is the CEO, I would have no confidence that it's been overseen adequately.
Let's also remember that 14.1 billion deficit will not have included the collapse of Thames Water which must have been seen as a gilt.
I see from the last thread that Sadiq Khan is being accused of doing nothing as well as of introducing an unprecedented assault on the rights of drivers of really dirty old cars. It really can't be both. Within the narrow confines of the Mayor of London job, and the deliberately mean financial constraints imposed by central government, Khan is doing a good job. He's certainly out-performing his utterly useless and corrupt predecessor. He's not thrown money away on a pointless garden bridge to nowhere, he's not thrown money at a too expensive to run retro bus design, and unlike Johnson who cancelled a crucial Thames river crossing in the east he is building one. Oh, and he's overseen the biggest expansion in council housing since the 1970s as well as bravely taking on vested interests to improve London's fatally bad air quality. And is pushing forward with the Bakerloo Line extension. And deals with threats to his life from various extremists that mean he needs 24hr police protection while being the leading Muslim politician in Europe. He gets my vote.
Absolutely. He's not very flashy, but I don't care about that. Incidentlaly, I have a 2015 Fiesta and it's ULEZ-compliant - how ancient does a car have to be to be a problem? I wo der if voters realise they eill mostly be unaffect.
Does whether it's petrol or diesel matter?
Also: the majority of older cars are driven by people who cannot afford newer ones. It's alright people who are reasonably well-off saying their vehicles meet it; it will badly affect many others who are less well-off.
I don't believe my VW Passat (2012) meets the requirement.
Having said all that; it's probably a good idea. But you cannot ignore its negative consequences when talking about the positives.
It’s something that can be useful in dense central London, with a lot of traffic and good public transport - but totally inappropriate in a more rural area with low-density housing and non-existant or unreliable public transport, that describes a lof of the area between the M25 and N/S circular roads.
In particular, including Heathrow just inside the new zone, comes across as being set up to catch out large numbers of occasional visitors.
Nonexistent public transport in outer London? WTAF are you talking about?
I assume you sir have never visited outer London.
Pre-2016 diesel, and pre-2006 petrol cars are the approximate boundaries of non-compliance I believe.
As a different view, there is no London Borough where less than 80% of cars are ULEZ compliant.
Susan Hall is chasing a small and declining minority amongst one of the smallest vehicle owning fractions of population in the country, and trying to scaremonger the rest.
That is why the Tories will be eviscerated.
If the non-compliant vehicles are such a small number, and likely to fall out of ownership naturally with time, why is putting in place the vast surveillance infrastructure to police the Ulez expansion needed at all?
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
Mentioning pension fund managers and functioning brains, in the same sentence?
(Yes, from a quick search it does appear that they suspended external dividends after 2017).
Well, yes, I did wonder at the time I posted...but let it go.
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" that would be free speech.
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Indeed. A right to say it and a right to expect the consequences.
Free speech is only free speech if you don't face "consequences" from those in authority you are criticising, so long as you're not breaking any laws in doing so.
If I say that the PM is a dictator, then he puts me in prison as a consequence for saying that, then that shows I am correct and is not free speech.
Consequences from the electorate, or others, is entirely reasonable. Consequences from those in authority whom you are criticising, not so much.
No one gets to criticise (at least without a solid basis for the criticism) an organisation/company of which they are part wthout facing potential consequences.
You have free speech and can say 'kangaroo court' and (other than perhaps, theoretically, libel?) there's no consequence for you as you're not an MP. But if your employer sacks someone and you say, publicly, 'kangaroo court' without some evidence, do you think your employer would take no action?
No one is going to prison over saying this. But free speech doens't mean the right to say whatever you like and be shielded from all consequences.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
The last time Thames Water paid an external dividend.
It pays an internal dividend but I don't know what the significance of that is.
On Susan Trump running for the Tories in London - as others are suggesting she is basically all the party have left. Nutjobs spewing lunacy in the mistaken belief that everyone who is right-thinking agrees with them.
I had expected Sunak to clean the house a little - a firm directional change, tack to the centre to win back those critical votes whilst throwing enough populist bones to the red wall Brexiteers to keep them Tory.
Instead he's managing to pander to all the extremes enough to drive away more voters whilst simultaneously not pandering to the extremes enough to keep them on board. We're going to see a choice of conservative parties on the ballot (unless they manage to pull SDPKIPREFCLAIM together as the "Britannia Party" or some other proto-fascist outfit and actually campaign on the policies that right-thinking people want.
The "respectable" hard right used to be a minority faction both in votes and in politics. Despite Brexit making it briefly feel bigger than it is, the "sink the migrants / support our veterans" mob are still only a small vote. Yet currently has 3 parties vying for its vote plus the lunatic wing of the Tories resolutely dragging them in the same direction, that pro-gollywog vote being precious. Madness piled on madness.
Isn't it just a case of Boris/Brexit hollowing out the sane Tories which makes it very difficult to recover to a more central position and broad church.
QTWAIN.
Boris at the last election had a broad church central position which attracted one of the highest shares of the vote in England recorded in the past half century. Higher even than Tony Blair achieved.
No "centrists" got kicked out, the only people who lost the whip were a few diehard zealots who voted against the whip on a confidence motion on Europe which is not a "centrist" position whatsoever.
I disagree, although not with the specific logic of your two points.
Your 2nd point is valid, but it is this group (and associates) that made up the centrists in the Tory party and most have gone. The reality is (and this is a generalisation) the left of the Tory party were pro remain and the right pro leave. As a consequence the right now has more sway.
I would disagree that Boris won on broad church central position. In my opinion, and one held by many is that Boris won for two reasons - Get Brexit done and Corbyn. That is not a broad church centrist position, although an excellent campaigning position at the time.
I find it difficult to argue that a lot of Tories from the left have not been driven out and that the two main causes are Boris and Brexit. They have and these are the two main reasons.
Sorry but that's a rewriting of history by those who loved to consider being pro-Europe to be the "centrist" position.
In what possible way was Dominic Grieve a part of the Tory "left"?
He didn't even vote for same sex marriage. Boris Johnson supported same sex marriage, along with David Cameron, but Dominic Grieve did not and yet Grieve is this great centrist? Why?
The idea he was this great liberal/left Tory is only because people who embrace pro-EU love to claim that.
Bart, You seem to have missed 5 critical words in my post which are: 'and this is a generalisation'
Are you really suggesting that in general the following statement is not true:
The left of the Tory party was more pro Remain and the right more pro Leave
There is no criticism in that statement. Just a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I don't think we need to resort to lists or exceptions to conclude that do we?
No, I don't accept that generalisation.
Theresa "Go Home" May was pro-Remain, and I would never once consider her to be on the left of the Party.
I believe from memory a majority of Tory MPs in 2016 were pro-Remain, but they overwhelmingly accepted the democratic will of the country and moved on. The die hard zealots who voted against leaving the EU on a confidence motion in 2019 and lost the whip as a result were not particularly left wing, and not representative of Remain backing MPs.
OK I accept that. I mean I accept we aren't going to agree on whether Boris and Brexit has alienated the more left wing element of the Tory party or not and that we are disagreeing on that opinion and not the logical conclusion of those opinions. I accept your conclusions based upon your opinion, although I think your opinion is wrong.
And of course that is the nature of politics. I tend to strongly agree with 75% of your opinions and disagree strongly with 25% of your opinions. I do find it interesting that I never have a 'meh' view on anything you say. It is either a very strong thumbs up or I think it is rubbish . I notice @Richard_Tyndall liked one of your posts to me. I have a very similar reaction to Richard, actually even more so. In his case it is more like 99% strongly agree, but on Brexit nope.
Finally on a specific - Theresa May. I agree not on the left, but again I was talking generalisations not specifics. I would also however not consider May to be on the right of the party either, but more middle of the road Tory. She is/was however authoritarian as a Home Secretary and very stubborn so I can understand from your (and my) far more libertarian view point unacceptable, but for a traditional Tory like @HYUFD probably an acceptable middle of the road Tory.
Yes, the one thing I like about this site is that although many of us have strong opinions, they are rarely party-partisan and are more our actual opinions. So we can agree on some things, but disagree on others.
Its a bit like a Venn Diagram. There is a lot of overlap between say yourself, @Richard_Tyndall as you named and myself. I find myself agreeing a lot with Richard (and vice-versa I think too) on many subjects, even if we passionately and vehemently disagree on the subject of planning. Ditto you and I, even if we disagree on Europe.
Interestingly I was pro-Remain until 2016. I've said this before, but it was in part discussions with Richard (along with @Casino_Royale and Boris and Gove) who helped convince me to switch from Remain to Leave.
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" that would be free speech.
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Indeed. A right to say it and a right to expect the consequences.
Free speech is only free speech if you don't face "consequences" from those in authority you are criticising, so long as you're not breaking any laws in doing so.
If I say that the PM is a dictator, then he puts me in prison as a consequence for saying that, then that shows I am correct and is not free speech.
Consequences from the electorate, or others, is entirely reasonable. Consequences from those in authority whom you are criticising, not so much.
No one gets to criticise (at least without a solid basis for the criticism) an organisation/company of which they are part wthout facing potential consequences.
You have free speech and can say 'kangaroo court' and (other than perhaps, theoretically, libel?) there's no consequence for you as you're not an MP. But if your employer sacks someone and you say, publicly, 'kangaroo court' without some evidence, do you think your employer would take no action?
No one is going to prison over saying this. But free speech doens't mean the right to say whatever you like and be shielded from all consequences.
MPs are not employed by other MPs. They're elected to represent their constituency.
If their employer wants to kick them out, they can do. At the next General Election.
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Oh FFS! That's what it means to be a shareholder. They've taken the dividends so now they can bloody well pay for the losses. We don't need more incompetently run arrogant groups thinking they are Too Big To Fail.
If Starmer's Labour does not get that what's the point of it?
Quite simply Labour are terrified of taking these companies / assets / services back onto the public books. Will take up £lots of cash which they need to spend elsewhere.
What they seem to miss - surely for reasons of electoral timidity - is that the StateCo model works. Already in the UK we have various foreign StateCo's running "privatised" services like trains and buses and deliveries and utililities.
The solution is to do the same. StateCo, run commercially but state owned. No more billions of public money walked off into the right people's pockets.
Yes, maybe we should get the NHS to take TW over, and show us how well a StateCo works.
The NHS is not a StateCo. Deutsche Bahn (Arriva) is. La Poste (DPD) is. State owned commercial enterprise. Not state-run as we embarrassingly have been doing these last few years running the likes of Transpennine Express into the ground.
My brother who lives in Germany will tell you DB is a total shower of shite and fail to run effective services. As for La Poste...
And yet here they are running significant numbers of trains and buses here, and delivering parcels, supplying us gas and electricity etc etc.
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Do we? I mean, look at the stories overnight from France and tell me that we have worse social issues than they do.
It is *really* hard to compare countries, especially when looking at how they might progress in the long term.
(Note; I'm not claiming we do not face significant issues, just that many countries face significant issues as well. We are far from unique.)
France has much worse ethnocultural issues than us. On almost every other social and economic metric, though, they're doing better.
This is even more pronounced in the rest of northwestern europe.
One off the top of my head - PISA rankings? I think we beat France ad Germany on that.
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
We just have "to hold our nerve" it seems.
Whatever that means.
It means not ask for pay rises, or expect decent housing, to ensure that the standard of living for the retired and top level managers can continue to rise unabated.
I never fail to be amazed at the idiots on here fixated on pensioners. Given they are on fixed incomes with a crap £9K state pension that even with inflation increase would not enable you to live how do you greedy grasping ignorant arseholes think they are all living in luxury. All their costs are rising same as you fcukwit and they pay the same tax as you fcukwit. A few will have bigger houses and therefore far higher housing and utiklity bills than you
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
We just have "to hold our nerve" it seems.
Whatever that means.
It means not ask for pay rises, or expect decent housing, to ensure that the standard of living for the retired and top level managers can continue to rise unabated.
I never fail to be amazed at the idiots on here fixated on pensioners. Given they are on fixed incomes with a crap £9K state pension that even with inflation increase would not enable you to live how do you greedy grasping ignorant arseholes think they are all living in luxury. All their costs are rising same as you fcukwit and they pay the same tax as you fcukwit. A few will have bigger houses and therefore far higher housing and utiklity bills than you fcukwit. Go and get a better job and stop whining.
Morning Malc, I'm fine personally, a tad older than the generation below who are completely shafted. Not complaining on behalf of myself, but whats best for the country and what is fair. All in it together, everyone do their bit and all that rather than dividing the country into near permanent silos of haves and have nots.
Good Morning, I still do not see why the constant gripe against pensioners getting a poxy rise on their £9K state pension. Anyone who has other income of any sort pays the same taxes as every other person in the country and so they get next to nothing compared to people in jobs earning salaries above £9K, ie everybody. What is the fixation that they are stealing money from anyone and what great benefit are they getting. I would love someone to explain it, apart from teh usual whinge about NI after they have paid ethir 50 years of contributions for state pension. No-one else in the country pays extra once they have completed their loan/payment/insurance plans. Would love to see a cogent explanation other than whining about some imagined bogey person stealing from the mouths of babes. They have done their 50 years of toiling.
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Ah ESG where Philip Morris who make products which kill people score higher than Tesla who make produuts which reduce CO2
Box ticking gibberish
Yep. But I can well believe that Philip Morris outscore Tesla on some components (treatment of workers, say, if that's included). But scoring better overall? You'd want your 'ethical' investments in Tesla rather than Philip Morris for sure.
I wonder if what is spooking the government is the thought of having to rescue the USS? It's already in big trouble and losses on Thames Water might even tip it over.
That's another example of regulatory failure, right there. They should have been forcing it to have a more diverse portfolio and a better contributions system long before they did (and that goes back into at least the Blair years, so it's not a partisan thing).
Although they could actually use it as a lever to either lifeboat it or merge it with TPS.
USS is actually far less bankrupt than normal at present (at least, that's what our VC says and he's pretty blunt and straight talking, or seems to be). Due to the recent changes in interest rates, investment returns etc, I think (if I had any idea how pensions work, I'd be making good money as a pensions investor, I guess).
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
The answer is I don't know, because I have spent some time looking but it's not readily available. But we would certainly be talking billions rather than millions.
Hmm. I'm no expert, but it would seem imprudent to have more than say 1-2% of investments in a single company, would it not? Even (what should be) a licence to print money company such as a utility co.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension ( - CRB at 1/85 and a retirement age in late 60s is more the reality)
If TW does go bust, it’ll be a big wake-up call for a number of institutional investors, especially in industries such as regulated utilities, where regular dividends have existed through the last couple of decades of market turbulence, so they’ve been seen as safe without much attention paid to them.
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
When was the last time Thames Water paid a dividend? 2017?
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
The last time Thames Water paid an external dividend.
It pays an internal dividend but I don't know what the significance of that is.
That's paid to its holding company.
The USS is an external shareholder.
However - at least it's not just our pension system that's fucked up on a n epochal scale here. Canada's seems to be somehow even worse:
Good. Members of the House should be treated in the same way as Officers of the Court. If I called the Kings Bench Division a "kangaroo court" because I didn't like how it had treated one of my clients I could expect to be suspended from practice, at least.
Even if you clapped while balancing a ball on your nose?
Good point. That might get it reduced to a fine.
Couldn't you ask for a pardon under the Great Seal?
Because, absent interest payments, Thames Water will be highly profitable.
EBITDA! EBITDA!
I mean, I don't know any Finance Director who (realising this trick) capitalised EVERYTHING and then depreciated it.
Oh wait... I do. Quite a few actually.
Remind me what the D stands for again...
Highly profitable without the debt, you say.
{OneWeb has entered the chat, with Iridium and others}
In theory, EBITDA seems reasonable enough, and (and this is just 'thevaliant' self taught rubbish - I'm a financial accountant and auditor, not a fancy pants management accountant) this comes from the statement that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are a true measure of profit generation.
Depreciation - not a cashflow Amortisation - likewise Interest - in theory, if the business is financed by debt, then any interest payments should be stripped out to show what the business would be like if it wasn't burdened with debt Tax - not controllable so shouldn't be included
Of course, just attacking the barebones of this:
Depreciation - it may not be a cashflow, but the original purchase of the fixed asset WAS, so why should it be excluded I've no idea? Amortisation - potentially, if its consolidated goodwill, or goodwill generated by a one off acquisition (trade and asset deal) then yes, I would ignore it. But amortisation could be on computer software (thanks FRS102) or development expenditure. In that case, why would you ignore amortisation? In fact, for development expenditure, it might be better to strip out the amortisation, but add back the amount capitalised as 'true' development spend. Interest - well, yes, in theory, but you've got to pay it so its still a cashflow albeit one that might not happen if you had no debts. Tax - you've got to pay it, especially if you're profitably, so why exclude it from the rate of return?
Turning even more to problems with EBITDA:
1) The introduction of IFRS16 (And upcoming incorporation into FRS102) means that rent will now be depreciation and interest, so making EBITDA completely inappropriate anymore. 2) Certain finance directors, upon realising EBITDA is used by the banks, or other lenders, start to do things to cause the auditors a headache. - Capitalise smaller fixed assets that really should be expensed - Capitalise 'development' time - Capitalise training
And then, if that still isn't working just abandon all pretend of 'pushing the boundaries' and capitalise everything. Training, electricity costs, salaries, postage, monthly computer licences, insurance, anything. Suddenly, fixed assets goes through the roof, depreciation and amortisation go through the roof but EBITDA is vastly improved.
I've had one client do just that. Capitalise everything and then depreciate it aggressively. It means the audit partner can sign clean, because the statutory headings of Turnover, Cost of Sales and Admin expenses are all broadly correct, the balance sheet broadly correct and the PAT broadly correct.
EBITDA is turnover however, but hey, that's for the idiot bank manager to understand why that's not right, not the audit partner. Clean audit report, nice shiny accounts, and everyones a winner until they're not.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare an average of all our neighbours on economic, social and investment metrics, to us. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany Belgium and France.
OK.
Economic metrics: The UK has been outperforming the Eurozone. We grew faster than it in both the 00s and 10s "despite Brexit".
Social: The UK consistently performs as one of the least racist and most tolerant nations.
Investment: The UK consistently achieves the highest levels of investment and has more "unicorns" than any other European country.
I stand by my statement. Some of the members of the Privileges Committee treated their witness, Boris Johnson, with contempt by gestures and other actions. Had it been in a law court, the judge would have called them to order. Respect for the Committee needs to be earned."
Would a Thames Water bail out go before the Commons? I'd think that Truss and the Conservative Growth Group would be strongly opposed. Wouldn't matter to the outcome as it appears SKS is in favour. But it could be bad for Sunak.
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
As well as being an inherently misconceived idea the privatised water companies have been appallingly regulated. No wonder they took advantage of it.
Been looking into the still state owned Scottish Water, which seems to be well run, providing water services at a lower cost, while investing more. People of England and Wales read this and weep:
If even the National takes a rather different view (although naturally they reflexively say independence would magically solve it) I'm not sure that's correct.
I would have said - entirely non-expert so I could easily be wrong - the key issue is we have an essentially Victorian water network serving more than twice the population it was designed for (and to much higher standards than the Victorians demanded) while the density of building makes renewal work very difficult.
This is compounded by the eagerness of companies to show profits rather than carry out the work stopping leaks or improving the sewer system, and further compounded by the poor quality of many managers and regulators who are appointed because of who they know not what they know.
I don't think that would be solved by renationalisation. Ultimately, it will be solved by accepting we need to prioritise renewing our utility network and putting actual engineers in charge to make it happen. That would not be cheap (exhibit A - I K Brunel).
One of the major problems with Scottish Water is their reluctance to extend their network to facilitate new developments, whether residential or commercial. It is proving a serious block to new investment and the obtaining of planning permission.
Which was the classic issue of other nationalised businesses. They saw new customers as a pain & a problem.
Still a lot better than the shitshow in England though.
On Susan Trump running for the Tories in London - as others are suggesting she is basically all the party have left. Nutjobs spewing lunacy in the mistaken belief that everyone who is right-thinking agrees with them.
I had expected Sunak to clean the house a little - a firm directional change, tack to the centre to win back those critical votes whilst throwing enough populist bones to the red wall Brexiteers to keep them Tory.
Instead he's managing to pander to all the extremes enough to drive away more voters whilst simultaneously not pandering to the extremes enough to keep them on board. We're going to see a choice of conservative parties on the ballot (unless they manage to pull SDPKIPREFCLAIM together as the "Britannia Party" or some other proto-fascist outfit and actually campaign on the policies that right-thinking people want.
The "respectable" hard right used to be a minority faction both in votes and in politics. Despite Brexit making it briefly feel bigger than it is, the "sink the migrants / support our veterans" mob are still only a small vote. Yet currently has 3 parties vying for its vote plus the lunatic wing of the Tories resolutely dragging them in the same direction, that pro-gollywog vote being precious. Madness piled on madness.
Isn't it just a case of Boris/Brexit hollowing out the sane Tories which makes it very difficult to recover to a more central position and broad church.
QTWAIN.
Boris at the last election had a broad church central position which attracted one of the highest shares of the vote in England recorded in the past half century. Higher even than Tony Blair achieved.
No "centrists" got kicked out, the only people who lost the whip were a few diehard zealots who voted against the whip on a confidence motion on Europe which is not a "centrist" position whatsoever.
I disagree, although not with the specific logic of your two points.
Your 2nd point is valid, but it is this group (and associates) that made up the centrists in the Tory party and most have gone. The reality is (and this is a generalisation) the left of the Tory party were pro remain and the right pro leave. As a consequence the right now has more sway.
I would disagree that Boris won on broad church central position. In my opinion, and one held by many is that Boris won for two reasons - Get Brexit done and Corbyn. That is not a broad church centrist position, although an excellent campaigning position at the time.
I find it difficult to argue that a lot of Tories from the left have not been driven out and that the two main causes are Boris and Brexit. They have and these are the two main reasons.
Sorry but that's a rewriting of history by those who loved to consider being pro-Europe to be the "centrist" position.
In what possible way was Dominic Grieve a part of the Tory "left"?
He didn't even vote for same sex marriage. Boris Johnson supported same sex marriage, along with David Cameron, but Dominic Grieve did not and yet Grieve is this great centrist? Why?
The idea he was this great liberal/left Tory is only because people who embrace pro-EU love to claim that.
Bart, You seem to have missed 5 critical words in my post which are: 'and this is a generalisation'
Are you really suggesting that in general the following statement is not true:
The left of the Tory party was more pro Remain and the right more pro Leave
There is no criticism in that statement. Just a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I don't think we need to resort to lists or exceptions to conclude that do we?
No, I don't accept that generalisation.
Theresa "Go Home" May was pro-Remain, and I would never once consider her to be on the left of the Party.
I believe from memory a majority of Tory MPs in 2016 were pro-Remain, but they overwhelmingly accepted the democratic will of the country and moved on. The die hard zealots who voted against leaving the EU on a confidence motion in 2019 and lost the whip as a result were not particularly left wing, and not representative of Remain backing MPs.
OK I accept that. I mean I accept we aren't going to agree on whether Boris and Brexit has alienated the more left wing element of the Tory party or not and that we are disagreeing on that opinion and not the logical conclusion of those opinions. I accept your conclusions based upon your opinion, although I think your opinion is wrong.
And of course that is the nature of politics. I tend to strongly agree with 75% of your opinions and disagree strongly with 25% of your opinions. I do find it interesting that I never have a 'meh' view on anything you say. It is either a very strong thumbs up or I think it is rubbish . I notice @Richard_Tyndall liked one of your posts to me. I have a very similar reaction to Richard, actually even more so. In his case it is more like 99% strongly agree, but on Brexit nope.
Finally on a specific - Theresa May. I agree not on the left, but again I was talking generalisations not specifics. I would also however not consider May to be on the right of the party either, but more middle of the road Tory. She is/was however authoritarian as a Home Secretary and very stubborn so I can understand from your (and my) far more libertarian view point unacceptable, but for a traditional Tory like @HYUFD probably an acceptable middle of the road Tory.
Yes, the one thing I like about this site is that although many of us have strong opinions, they are rarely party-partisan and are more our actual opinions. So we can agree on some things, but disagree on others.
Its a bit like a Venn Diagram. There is a lot of overlap between say yourself, @Richard_Tyndall as you named and myself. I find myself agreeing a lot with Richard (and vice-versa I think too) on many subjects, even if we passionately and vehemently disagree on the subject of planning. Ditto you and I, even if we disagree on Europe.
Interestingly I was pro-Remain until 2016. I've said this before, but it was in part discussions with Richard (along with @Casino_Royale and Boris and Gove) who helped convince me to switch from Remain to Leave.
Well I have really gone off @Richard_Tyndall now if he helped convert you.
I appreciate your (and Richard's) views on Europe are more niche and thought out.
I note @Sandpit liked your reply. He is another who I often agree with, yet I think our politics do not align.
As as I have mentioned it twice, this is another reason I like the like button. It is not only so I can show my appreciation for a post that I have nothing to add to, but I like to see who has liked my and others posts and I am often pleasantly surprised by who it is.
And our disagreement on Europe pales into insignificance compared to our disagreement on PR vs FPTP (no I'm not going there).
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
How many SKS fans does it take to argue for renationalizing a water company.
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
It's not particularly easy to get a good picture of the extent of the problems as the most recent published Ofwat financial stability report is for 2021/22, before the interest rate hit.
Presumably the water utilities are not the only zombie companies loaded with debt that they will struggle to finance at higher interest rates.
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
Hard to disagree to be fair though gross incompetence is not the sole preserve of the conservative party as time will tell
It's not, but even a reversion to normal levels of competence and graft will be a meaningful improvement on the status quo.
That's what's so infuriating about the Conservatives right now.
This is not just a tory issue its a how the country is run issue. The same bunch of people are in power and bar a bit of spin follow the same policies. Macquarie who are getting criticised for Thames debt bought the company in 2006 under Blair. Blair Brown Cameron Boris none of them have have actually done that much to reform the state and address its fundamental weaknesses.
As I observed yesterday.
Our most intractable problems are at least a couple of decades in the making. We need to realise that it will take as long to sort them out, and stop pretending it can be done in an electoral cycle or two. But it needs to be started on now.
The disaster in the water industry is yet another example of the negative consequences of super low interest rates imposed by the BoE for more than a decade after the GFC. Basically, the model was that they could borrow at super low rates, invest a chunk of that money with the statutory right of a higher rate of return on it through water bills and take the surplus off as dividends. The whole model is predicated on interest rates being below the rate of return. How could anyone ever think this was going to be the case indefinitely?
Why would the people who have walked off with wheelbarrows full of cash care about the long term?
Of course they don’t. It has been a fabulously successful business for them. But the regulators…sheez.
The regulators who've operated a revolving door of getting into bed with those they're regulating?
Seems like they've had a successful 'career' too.
Regulation doesn't work as well as the market does. If the market means that Thames Water dies and bondholders face a £14bn haircut, then they ought to be more careful in what they invest in next time. That's the market working, not failing.
Treating any firm as "too big to fail" destroys the market principles.
When/if Thames Water fails who or what, in your perfect scenario, delivers the relevant utility services. The administrators? The state?
Yes.
The administrators, or a new firm who buys them out, or a bondholder buyout, or as a last resort the Government could nationalise it for the £1 (after ensuring a haircut so no bailout) and then potentially re-privatise it later on.
The point is the principles of administration are well established. If they go out of business, then operations can continue, even if the bondholders and shareholders are wiped out.
There is no reason to bailout the bondholders and shareholders. If you privatise the gains, you privatise the losses. Its their losses, not the taxpayers losses.
What happens if the admins decide they can't run the water supply without trading at a loss, and tell HMG they are sacking everyone as of now, turning the taps off, and selling off the land and water to the highest bidder? Asking for a friend (but wondering if there is anything to stop that).
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
But other countries applied long-term solutions.
Look at several of our neighbours.
Which one of neighbours has no significant medium- and long-term problems? They may not be the same problems, but it's hard to argue that any large country does not have significant issues. Or, in fact, that any large country has never had any significant medium- and long-term issues.
But we have worse ones.
Compare all our neighbours to us, on economic, social and investment metrics.
Ah ESG where Philip Morris who make products which kill people score higher than Tesla who make produuts which reduce CO2
Box ticking gibberish
Yep. But I can well believe that Philip Morris outscore Tesla on some components (treatment of workers, say, if that's included). But scoring better overall? You'd want your 'ethical' investments in Tesla rather than Philip Morris for sure.
But Philip Morris has "invested" in all the right things - paying for performative bullshit. The death sticks side business isn't really relevant....
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Wouldn't work. The carriages would just fill with sewage at high tide.
Not knowing Brighton very well apart from a Tango Weekend there a few years ago, and that Blue Rinse Ladies are currently pulling their hair out over the loss of 0.3% of parking spaces to allow safe cycle parking for 6x a many bike users (end of the world, apparently), and the previous Green Ban on Bacon Butties for Dustmen, do they operate a good Park and Ride scheme? That might help.
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
I’m sorry I missed the discussion on water infrastructure before, but I’ll put in my two pennorth now, if I may. I’ve been head down in the area for more than four years now, specifically in the field of the Abingdon super-reservoir. I started thinking “Good idea. Reservoirs are good, right?” but ran into a thicket of issues which turned me around.
Reservoirs store water. They’re reliant on their input sources and only as useful as the network to get water out of them and to the consumer. That network (small scale and large scale – the latter of which is almost totally absent) is the crucial area of water infrastructure.
That small-scale network is the water that comes to your house. This network leaks nearly half the water between input and output. To put it another way, we could double the effective reservoir capacity simply by fixing leaks. It’s not as simple as saying it, but leakage reduction should be front and centre until it’s hugely reduced. But it’s not sexy and doesn’t give companies a concomitant increase in Regulated Capital Asset Value against their expenditure.
The large scale network is a National Water Grid, with inter-region water transfers at scale and on demand. In England alone, the wettest region gets six times the rainfall as the driest region – but water stays almost entirely in-region, so the water-stressed regions are completely dependent on the most water-stressed rivers and aquifers to refresh their reservoirs. “We have a water distribution issue, not a water shortage issue.”
However – the companies that need the water would be paying the companies supplying the water, and the capital asset value doesn’t go to the companies needing the water. Again, commercially unwelcome. We’ve seen the demand side of the equation debated, and there’s a big conversation to be had there: is it really wise to use drinking water to clean your car, flush your toilet, and so forth during a water shortage? Making ALL water into drinking water is costly, laborious, and involves leaking more and more through that leaky old piping system…
In addition, fitting water meters means that people almost all tend to moderate consumption off their own bat (when you see how much you use, you instinctively avoid wasting it).
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
As well as being an inherently misconceived idea the privatised water companies have been appallingly regulated. No wonder they took advantage of it.
Been looking into the still state owned Scottish Water, which seems to be well run, providing water services at a lower cost, while investing more. People of England and Wales read this and weep:
If even the National takes a rather different view (although naturally they reflexively say independence would magically solve it) I'm not sure that's correct.
I would have said - entirely non-expert so I could easily be wrong - the key issue is we have an essentially Victorian water network serving more than twice the population it was designed for (and to much higher standards than the Victorians demanded) while the density of building makes renewal work very difficult.
This is compounded by the eagerness of companies to show profits rather than carry out the work stopping leaks or improving the sewer system, and further compounded by the poor quality of many managers and regulators who are appointed because of who they know not what they know.
I don't think that would be solved by renationalisation. Ultimately, it will be solved by accepting we need to prioritise renewing our utility network and putting actual engineers in charge to make it happen. That would not be cheap (exhibit A - I K Brunel).
One of the major problems with Scottish Water is their reluctance to extend their network to facilitate new developments, whether residential or commercial. It is proving a serious block to new investment and the obtaining of planning permission.
Which was the classic issue of other nationalised businesses. They saw new customers as a pain & a problem.
Still a lot better than the shitshow in England though.
How does that compare for the issue DavidL identified, as a matter of interest?
On reservoirs, it’s wise to move to a more distributed network of smaller reservoirs held closer to the customer (if they’re small enough, they can be effectively underwater tanks, avoiding evaporation and not causing significant local disruption) – more resilient, far quicker to build, easier to scale to demand (due to speed of building), and closer to the customer (less leakage). However building an epically big reservoir leads to a far greater increase in Regulated Capital Asset Value (the Abingdon super-reservoir would add around £4.8 bn to the regulated spreadsheet, which could save them).
How big is “super-reservoir”? Well, it’s over thirty times the size of the median reservoir capacity in England. Sixteen times the size of Farmoor reservoir up the road. And as a bunded reservoir, it’s built up, not down.
So, let’s gloss over the huge local disruption, the dislodging of the flood plain meaning that Abingdon and surrounding villages would regularly flood (which is something frowned upon these days), the microclimate fogs it would cause on the A34, the security implications of protecting something holding back five times the mass of water as the mass of Swindon and all that’s in it, the geoengineering aspects of something that heavy flexing down and up on the clay floor of the Vale of White Horse and so forth – because, let’s face it, for most people, that’s someone else’s problem. If it provides a big regional benefit, sacrificing locals can be a price most are willing to pay.
Except… it would be totally dependent on the water-stressed Thames to fill and refill. If we don’t have long droughts, it’d be unnecessary (population growth isn’t nearly enough to justify something that huge, not by a long long way). But if we do have long deep droughts (which isn’t implausible with climate change)… it’d run dry. It’d have been unusable for half of the 1976-77 drought, and those are exactly the droughts for which we’d like improved infrastructure.
I mean, taking that local hit is painful, yes, but if it provided something really useful to all of us, rather than just to offset huge debts for a water company and permit them to further increase their bills – that’s hard to take. Not to mention that due to its immense size and megaproject complexity (involving rerouting main roads, electrical backbones, and developing the expertise to make a bunded reservoir far huger than any ever built in the UK), it’d take a long time before it could feasibly provide a drop of water to anyone. We’re talking approaching 2050… if Thames Water turn out to be so amazingly good at megaproject management as to come in on time and budget against an optimistic schedule. Realistically, it wouldn’t give anything during the lives of most of us here.
A long planning horizon doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something, of course. But Thames Water are pushing this to exclude building that water transfer system until after it’s built – because the moment we have the transfer system, any rationale for this multi-billion pound asset goes away.
So – fix leaks. Install water meters. Build the National Water Grid. If reservoirs are then still needed, build many small and dispersed ones, as close to the consumer as possible. But a super-reservoir that won’t give anything in our lifetimes other than figures on a balance sheet for a badly run company in loads of debt, won’t even provide the drought resilience we want, and will be used to force delay to all the rest of it… that’s not a good idea.
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
It's not particularly easy to get a good picture of the extent of the problems as the most recent published Ofwat financial stability report is for 2021/22, before the interest rate hit.
Presumably the water utilities are not the only zombie companies loaded with debt that they will struggle to finance at higher interest rates.
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
Hard to disagree to be fair though gross incompetence is not the sole preserve of the conservative party as time will tell
It's not, but even a reversion to normal levels of competence and graft will be a meaningful improvement on the status quo.
That's what's so infuriating about the Conservatives right now.
This is not just a tory issue its a how the country is run issue. The same bunch of people are in power and bar a bit of spin follow the same policies. Macquarie who are getting criticised for Thames debt bought the company in 2006 under Blair. Blair Brown Cameron Boris none of them have have actually done that much to reform the state and address its fundamental weaknesses.
As I observed yesterday.
Our most intractable problems are at least a couple of decades in the making. We need to realise that it will take as long to sort them out, and stop pretending it can be done in an electoral cycle or two. But it needs to be started on now.
The disaster in the water industry is yet another example of the negative consequences of super low interest rates imposed by the BoE for more than a decade after the GFC. Basically, the model was that they could borrow at super low rates, invest a chunk of that money with the statutory right of a higher rate of return on it through water bills and take the surplus off as dividends. The whole model is predicated on interest rates being below the rate of return. How could anyone ever think this was going to be the case indefinitely?
Why would the people who have walked off with wheelbarrows full of cash care about the long term?
Of course they don’t. It has been a fabulously successful business for them. But the regulators…sheez.
The regulators who've operated a revolving door of getting into bed with those they're regulating?
Seems like they've had a successful 'career' too.
Regulation doesn't work as well as the market does. If the market means that Thames Water dies and bondholders face a £14bn haircut, then they ought to be more careful in what they invest in next time. That's the market working, not failing.
Treating any firm as "too big to fail" destroys the market principles.
When/if Thames Water fails who or what, in your perfect scenario, delivers the relevant utility services. The administrators? The state?
Yes.
The administrators, or a new firm who buys them out, or a bondholder buyout, or as a last resort the Government could nationalise it for the £1 (after ensuring a haircut so no bailout) and then potentially re-privatise it later on.
The point is the principles of administration are well established. If they go out of business, then operations can continue, even if the bondholders and shareholders are wiped out.
There is no reason to bailout the bondholders and shareholders. If you privatise the gains, you privatise the losses. Its their losses, not the taxpayers losses.
What happens if the admins decide they can't run the water supply without trading at a loss, and tell HMG they are sacking everyone as of now, turning the taps off, and selling off the land and water to the highest bidder? Asking for a friend (but wondering if there is anything to stop that).
As I said, I see no reason why the Government can't at that point step in and buy the assets for £1 while that bondholders and shareholders are wiped out.
But considering the issue is not the business fundamentals, but that the company is too indebted, there's no particular reason why that needs to happen. It may happen if nobody wants to touch it, but if the bondholders take an appropriate haircut then the problem largely goes away.
The bondholders taking a haircut and owning the company as a result may be better for the bondholders than being completely wiped out. But either way the taxpayer must not in my eyes bail out either the bondholders or the shareholders. Their investment, their responsibility.
Faisal Islam on R4 today hinting both government and opposition are nervous about Britain's investabilty outlook if the shareholders have to pay.
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
How is a private firm failing a bird coming home to roost? That's the entire point of privatisation.
A failed state business will just keep draining taxpayer funds, but a failed private business will be put out of it's misery.
If it fails, it fails. Let it die. That's a success not a failure for privatisation. The idea private businesses can't be allowed to die is turning your back on privatisation.
And the taps turn off and the s*** backs up.
No, they don't. The firm goes into Administration, somebody buys the assets for £1 and operations continue uninterrupted but with the shareholders wiped out and the bondholders taking a haircut.
There's a complete rewriting of history going on this morning that zombie businesses failing is somehow a repudiation of Thatcher. The truth could not be more polar opposite. Thatcher's whole premise was that carrying the deadweight of zombie firms was not worthwhile so better to let them fail and have something else arise instead.
Thatcher would never have contemplated 'bailing out' Thames Water. Let it die, let someone buy its assets for £1, and move on.
Yeah, that'll work.
Any friends or families of Ministers ready to take a punt?
Hands up who remembers the Phoenix Four? Bought Rover Group for a tenner from BMW. Accepted a multi- million Euro dowry from BMW and, as it turned out, quite legally stripped the assets into their own bank accounts until nothing was left.
Well quite. And that's why the company should/will be bought be either the Gov't or an arms length Gov't company.
Whoever pocketed the 37B from the 10 bob covid app could easily purchase it, sure plenty of the Tory recipients of covid largesse have shedloads looking for a home.
I stand by my statement. Some of the members of the Privileges Committee treated their witness, Boris Johnson, with contempt by gestures and other actions. Had it been in a law court, the judge would have called them to order. Respect for the Committee needs to be earned."
A long planning horizon doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something, of course. But Thames Water are pushing this to exclude building that water transfer system until after it’s built – because the moment we have the transfer system, any rationale for this multi-billion pound asset goes away.
So – fix leaks. Install water meters. Build the National Water Grid. If reservoirs are then still needed, build many small and dispersed ones, as close to the consumer as possible. But a super-reservoir that won’t give anything in our lifetimes other than figures on a balance sheet for a badly run company in loads of debt, won’t even provide the drought resilience we want, and will be used to force delay to all the rest of it… that’s not a good idea.
(3/3)
Spot on
Fix leaks as a priority,
However they also need to fix Ofwat, who somehow have missed that adding 10 million people to the population requires major investment in storage capacity and the infrastructure to support it.
Next step the UK will threaten to pull out of the ECHR . And then can be in the illustrious company of Russia and Belarus . The impact of leaving the ECHR will be huge . The EU UK deal will be in tatters , the Good Friday Agreement relies on adherence to current human rights laws but I’m sure the low information and easily duped will lap up the right wing talking points and be happy to vote away their rights .
On Susan Trump running for the Tories in London - as others are suggesting she is basically all the party have left. Nutjobs spewing lunacy in the mistaken belief that everyone who is right-thinking agrees with them.
I had expected Sunak to clean the house a little - a firm directional change, tack to the centre to win back those critical votes whilst throwing enough populist bones to the red wall Brexiteers to keep them Tory.
Instead he's managing to pander to all the extremes enough to drive away more voters whilst simultaneously not pandering to the extremes enough to keep them on board. We're going to see a choice of conservative parties on the ballot (unless they manage to pull SDPKIPREFCLAIM together as the "Britannia Party" or some other proto-fascist outfit and actually campaign on the policies that right-thinking people want.
The "respectable" hard right used to be a minority faction both in votes and in politics. Despite Brexit making it briefly feel bigger than it is, the "sink the migrants / support our veterans" mob are still only a small vote. Yet currently has 3 parties vying for its vote plus the lunatic wing of the Tories resolutely dragging them in the same direction, that pro-gollywog vote being precious. Madness piled on madness.
Isn't it just a case of Boris/Brexit hollowing out the sane Tories which makes it very difficult to recover to a more central position and broad church.
QTWAIN.
Boris at the last election had a broad church central position which attracted one of the highest shares of the vote in England recorded in the past half century. Higher even than Tony Blair achieved.
No "centrists" got kicked out, the only people who lost the whip were a few diehard zealots who voted against the whip on a confidence motion on Europe which is not a "centrist" position whatsoever.
I disagree, although not with the specific logic of your two points.
Your 2nd point is valid, but it is this group (and associates) that made up the centrists in the Tory party and most have gone. The reality is (and this is a generalisation) the left of the Tory party were pro remain and the right pro leave. As a consequence the right now has more sway.
I would disagree that Boris won on broad church central position. In my opinion, and one held by many is that Boris won for two reasons - Get Brexit done and Corbyn. That is not a broad church centrist position, although an excellent campaigning position at the time.
I find it difficult to argue that a lot of Tories from the left have not been driven out and that the two main causes are Boris and Brexit. They have and these are the two main reasons.
Sorry but that's a rewriting of history by those who loved to consider being pro-Europe to be the "centrist" position.
In what possible way was Dominic Grieve a part of the Tory "left"?
He didn't even vote for same sex marriage. Boris Johnson supported same sex marriage, along with David Cameron, but Dominic Grieve did not and yet Grieve is this great centrist? Why?
The idea he was this great liberal/left Tory is only because people who embrace pro-EU love to claim that.
Bart, You seem to have missed 5 critical words in my post which are: 'and this is a generalisation'
Are you really suggesting that in general the following statement is not true:
The left of the Tory party was more pro Remain and the right more pro Leave
There is no criticism in that statement. Just a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I don't think we need to resort to lists or exceptions to conclude that do we?
No, I don't accept that generalisation.
Theresa "Go Home" May was pro-Remain, and I would never once consider her to be on the left of the Party.
I believe from memory a majority of Tory MPs in 2016 were pro-Remain, but they overwhelmingly accepted the democratic will of the country and moved on. The die hard zealots who voted against leaving the EU on a confidence motion in 2019 and lost the whip as a result were not particularly left wing, and not representative of Remain backing MPs.
OK I accept that. I mean I accept we aren't going to agree on whether Boris and Brexit has alienated the more left wing element of the Tory party or not and that we are disagreeing on that opinion and not the logical conclusion of those opinions. I accept your conclusions based upon your opinion, although I think your opinion is wrong.
And of course that is the nature of politics. I tend to strongly agree with 75% of your opinions and disagree strongly with 25% of your opinions. I do find it interesting that I never have a 'meh' view on anything you say. It is either a very strong thumbs up or I think it is rubbish . I notice @Richard_Tyndall liked one of your posts to me. I have a very similar reaction to Richard, actually even more so. In his case it is more like 99% strongly agree, but on Brexit nope.
Finally on a specific - Theresa May. I agree not on the left, but again I was talking generalisations not specifics. I would also however not consider May to be on the right of the party either, but more middle of the road Tory. She is/was however authoritarian as a Home Secretary and very stubborn so I can understand from your (and my) far more libertarian view point unacceptable, but for a traditional Tory like @HYUFD probably an acceptable middle of the road Tory.
Yes, the one thing I like about this site is that although many of us have strong opinions, they are rarely party-partisan and are more our actual opinions. So we can agree on some things, but disagree on others.
Its a bit like a Venn Diagram. There is a lot of overlap between say yourself, @Richard_Tyndall as you named and myself. I find myself agreeing a lot with Richard (and vice-versa I think too) on many subjects, even if we passionately and vehemently disagree on the subject of planning. Ditto you and I, even if we disagree on Europe.
Interestingly I was pro-Remain until 2016. I've said this before, but it was in part discussions with Richard (along with @Casino_Royale and Boris and Gove) who helped convince me to switch from Remain to Leave.
Well I have really gone off @Richard_Tyndall now if he helped convert you.
I appreciate your (and Richard's) views on Europe are more niche and thought out.
I note @Sandpit liked your reply. He is another who I often agree with, yet I think our politics do not align.
As as I have mentioned it twice, this is another reason I like the like button. It is not only so I can show my appreciation for a post that I have nothing to add to, but I like to see who has liked my and others posts and I am often pleasantly surprised by who it is.
And our disagreement on Europe pales into insignificance compared to our disagreement on PR vs FPTP (no I'm not going there).
This forum is a generally polite place, where people can agree to disagree on a wide range of subjects, and where I think many of us have changed their minds on various things over the years, as a result of the discussions here. Few posters are hyper-partisan, constantly drumming a party line, although the disagreements do get a little more heated at times of high political drama or events.
I try to like posts that make me think, even if I don’t agree with everything, and try to avoid liking posts that are negative or personal.
I think I agree with @BartholomewRoberts on most things, except gender stuff in schools and Emma Raducanu. That last one cost me £100, but I now feel vindicated in my 2021 view that she was more of a one-hit wonder than Rick Astley.
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
Cue Home Secretary Braverman trying to change the law to make clear Rwanda is a safe country to take asylum seekers too, after her policy is rejected by 'liberal elite' Court of Appeal judges now as well as the 'liberal elite' House of Lords and C of E Bishops
Another privatisation disaster. What a moronic model.
Take it into temporary public ownership. Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments. Stop dividend payments. Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration. Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices. "No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
How many SKS fans does it take to argue for renationalizing a water company.
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
Bring back Jezza
Jezzanomics not viable with higher interest rates, even if it was at low ones.
We are skint, in part because of government failures, but skint nonetheless.
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Fears are growing for four more water firms as Thames Water teeters on the brink of collapse with contingency plans reportedly being made to nationalise swathes of Britain's water industry.
Ministers have looked to allay fears around the impact of Thames Water potentially going under as the regulator vowed to work with the sector to deal with its debt levels.
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said there were 'contingency plans in place for any eventuality' as Thames Water battles to finance the £14 billion of debt on its books following interest rate rises.
It comes as several reports suggested concerns about Thames Water's finances had now broadened to other firms in the industry.
The financial health of up to four other English water companies is being monitored, according to reports.
These include Southern Water which serves 2.6million people and Yorkshire Water with 5million customers, it is understood.
The Times cited a Whitehall source as saying: 'A lot of these companies are highly geared and struggling.
'There is a worst case scenario where other companies end up in the same place as Thames Water.'
It's not particularly easy to get a good picture of the extent of the problems as the most recent published Ofwat financial stability report is for 2021/22, before the interest rate hit.
Presumably the water utilities are not the only zombie companies loaded with debt that they will struggle to finance at higher interest rates.
It would appear that Mad Nads will be found in contempt of parliament later today. That may change the dynamic. Also in need of change is that various people proffered gongs in the Boris! Dishonours list will also be found in contempt of parliament - at least Mogg and Clarke off top of my head.
This one is pretty simple - anyone who committed contempt of parliament should have their stupid title cancelled. There can be no reward for that kind of behaviour, especially if (when?) the committee proposes sanctions.
Good morning
You are correct but does anyone really think anything will change
I see Sunak has guaranteed the triple lock and will include it in the conservative manifesto and predictably Starmer has affirmed the same commitment to the triple lock
We have another 18 months of this and frankly I doubt anything much will change with PM Starmer .
The country is in decline. Public services run down or absent. Visible dirt and decay and litter because councils can't afford to employ enough staff and people have stopped caring. Vast public debt and record peacetime taxes to pay for these non-services.
Fixing that, and giving people a brighter future, is not something where a new government can wave a magic wand. So you are right that change in the substance will be slow.
What will change rapidly is the grift an corruption will stop. No more billions in public money stolen from us and handed to Tory donors and patrons. No more gross incompetence and uncaring sneering when people across the social demographic complain about bills / fuel / mortgages / food etc. No more illegal policies written in crayon aimed at people who don't see a problem with golliwogs.
I like you will not vote for Starmer's Labour. But I will rejoice when the Tories get smashed as surely now is their fate.
Hard to disagree to be fair though gross incompetence is not the sole preserve of the conservative party as time will tell
It's not, but even a reversion to normal levels of competence and graft will be a meaningful improvement on the status quo.
That's what's so infuriating about the Conservatives right now.
This is not just a tory issue its a how the country is run issue. The same bunch of people are in power and bar a bit of spin follow the same policies. Macquarie who are getting criticised for Thames debt bought the company in 2006 under Blair. Blair Brown Cameron Boris none of them have have actually done that much to reform the state and address its fundamental weaknesses.
As I observed yesterday.
Our most intractable problems are at least a couple of decades in the making. We need to realise that it will take as long to sort them out, and stop pretending it can be done in an electoral cycle or two. But it needs to be started on now.
The disaster in the water industry is yet another example of the negative consequences of super low interest rates imposed by the BoE for more than a decade after the GFC. Basically, the model was that they could borrow at super low rates, invest a chunk of that money with the statutory right of a higher rate of return on it through water bills and take the surplus off as dividends. The whole model is predicated on interest rates being below the rate of return. How could anyone ever think this was going to be the case indefinitely?
Why would the people who have walked off with wheelbarrows full of cash care about the long term?
Of course they don’t. It has been a fabulously successful business for them. But the regulators…sheez.
The regulators who've operated a revolving door of getting into bed with those they're regulating?
Seems like they've had a successful 'career' too.
Regulation doesn't work as well as the market does. If the market means that Thames Water dies and bondholders face a £14bn haircut, then they ought to be more careful in what they invest in next time. That's the market working, not failing.
Treating any firm as "too big to fail" destroys the market principles.
When/if Thames Water fails who or what, in your perfect scenario, delivers the relevant utility services. The administrators? The state?
Yes.
The administrators, or a new firm who buys them out, or a bondholder buyout, or as a last resort the Government could nationalise it for the £1 (after ensuring a haircut so no bailout) and then potentially re-privatise it later on.
The point is the principles of administration are well established. If they go out of business, then operations can continue, even if the bondholders and shareholders are wiped out.
There is no reason to bailout the bondholders and shareholders. If you privatise the gains, you privatise the losses. Its their losses, not the taxpayers losses.
What happens if the admins decide they can't run the water supply without trading at a loss, and tell HMG they are sacking everyone as of now, turning the taps off, and selling off the land and water to the highest bidder? Asking for a friend (but wondering if there is anything to stop that).
As I said, I see no reason why the Government can't at that point step in and buy the assets for £1 while that bondholders and shareholders are wiped out.
But considering the issue is not the business fundamentals, but that the company is too indebted, there's no particular reason why that needs to happen. It may happen if nobody wants to touch it, but if the bondholders take an appropriate haircut then the problem largely goes away.
The bondholders taking a haircut and owning the company as a result may be better for the bondholders than being completely wiped out. But either way the taxpayer must not in my eyes bail out either the bondholders or the shareholders. Their investment, their responsibility.
Which is logical, but may end with the government bailing out pension funds.
I suspect that is something they want to avoid if they can. If only because it will show with embarrassing clarity just how appalling our regulation of them has been.
So although I agree with you, I think a rescue of some sort is likely.
It looks like unless Nadine is elevated to the Lords after all or gets a satisfactory explanation why she wasn't, she will stay as an MP until the next general election out of spite. There will therefore be no by election in Mid Beds after all
Question - given her obvious statement otherwise does anyone know if she (is) still:
a) Holds the Conservative whip? b) A member of the Conservative party at all?
She still does hold the Tory whip and remains a Tory MP
Thatcher is lauded on here as having transformed Britain for the better after the inertia of the "Post-War Concensus", creating a privatised model to envy the world. Yet some of her keystones like the selling off of public sector housing and the privatisation of utilities are birds that seem to be coming home to roost forty years on.
She applied solutions to the 1980s that enabled Britain to work in that era. But that era has gone and those solutions are now problems and we have to fix them. We don't know how. Boris knew vaguely, but Boris self-destructed. Power will now alternate between Cons and Lab or somebody else until somebody works it out and then they will be in power for a long while
The seeds of those problems were apparent even at the time.
Much discussion at the time of privatisation about the crumbling nature of a lot of the victorian sewer infrastructure, for example.
And certainly the idea that councils would lose most of the proceeds of housing sales was widely condemned at the time.
The headline tells most of the story which may be relevant to general election betting on Brighton Pavilion (Caroline Lucas, Green, is retiring).
Misreporting by the Telegraph. The Greens were going to hike parking charges massively, the new Labour Council has put it on hold. Brighton's parking problem in summer is largely due to 10,000 car drivers thinking they have a right to one of the 500 spaces on the seafront. As for tourists abandoning Brighton - ha ha. The city is heaving.
I think that's the Telegraph feeding its trolls.
The parking charge changes in Brighton are interesting - the hikes on short term (eg 1hr) parking are far steeper than those on long-term parking (all day).
They are incentivising visitors in motor vehicles to stay for half a day or a full day, and disincentivising large numbers of polluting journeys, which sounds like a very good strategy.
The other side of that coin should be strategic long-term investment in high quality public transport. They need a workplace parking levy and a tram network, like Nottingham.
Unfortunately, I don't think a tram network in Brighton would be viable. However, the buses are excellent - frequency, routes, fares and usage are all very good.
Why have a tram when you have Volk's Electric Railway (est. 1883)?
Bring back the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway! A ground (sea?)-level elevated railway!
Comments
What is (was?) 20% of Thames Water. in 2021 when the investment was upped. USS had £82.2bn of total investments, 45% in UK, apparently.
It was kind of interesting to see the extreme detail they had gone into. Including the effect of the death of everyone in my business unit…
F1 needs to take so many cues from Indycar. Having 3 or 4 cars in one team is fine, but drop the pretence that the teams manufacture everything bar the engine. Its a lie, stop pretending otherwise.
What fans want is racing, so lets go to a single chassis. OR go the other way and let teams build what they want. Either way, and end to this pitiful crap. Last weekend we watched Indycar live and then F1 as live afterwards. It really highlighted how tedious F1 is.
His appointment could be announced within days. He will replace Ian Marchant, who was appointed chairman almost a year ago.
Montague, a solicitor turned banker and a former chairman of the FTSE 100 insurance giant Aviva, has been the government’s go-to person in a crisis before. He served as a bridge between the City and Whitehall in the late 1990s after being appointed chief executive of the Treasury’s Private Finance Initiative Taskforce, which pioneered the use of private capital and companies in the provision of public services.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thames-water-sir-adrian-montague-chairman-ceo-df3h996l7
I think I’ll have to make do with a wheel nut paperweight for now though. Except they’re going to be made of Titanium aren’t they, and weigh about three grams each?
Whether you like what someone has to say or not, people should have a right to say it, that especially entails to MPs.
Look at several of our neighbours.
If it fails, it fails. Let it die. No flowers.
There are two sides to interest rate rises.
Leave the debt behind so that it is then profitable without the interest payments.
Stop dividend payments.
Appoint a strong REMCO and sort out top management remuneration.
Ensure that there is only sufficient profit and cash flow to finance investment in improved infrastructure which may enable a reduction in prices.
"No dividends ever" reduces the value of the company and potentially enables an eventual cheap conversion to permanent public ownership.
That would be my plan.
Maybe I need to adjust my plan to retire at 50 on a final salary pension (
Compare an average of all our neighbours on economic, social and investment metrics, to us. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany Belgium and France.
This is one of the reasons why I think the government may be panicking. If Thames Water goes down it potentially exposes a major regulatory failure in both water *and* pensions. And pensions are in a very bad way already.
Box ticking gibberish
Also, no one has a good word about Deutsche Bank, do they?
It is *really* hard to compare countries, especially when looking at how they might progress in the long term.
(Note; I'm not claiming we do not face significant issues, just that many countries face significant issues as well. We are far from unique.)
None.
SKS says now is not the time or we can't afford it and they sit silent, no longer argue for what they believe in, and swim in shit put up with burst pipes and massive internal dividends and applaud SKS
It’s also going to be a wake-up call for bondholders, who are going to be want to stress-test their debt holdings against further interest rate rises.
And of course that is the nature of politics. I tend to strongly agree with 75% of your opinions and disagree strongly with 25% of your opinions. I do find it interesting that I never have a 'meh' view on anything you say. It is either a very strong thumbs up or I think it is rubbish
Finally on a specific - Theresa May. I agree not on the left, but again I was talking generalisations not specifics. I would also however not consider May to be on the right of the party either, but more middle of the road Tory. She is/was however authoritarian as a Home Secretary and very stubborn so I can understand from your (and my) far more libertarian view point unacceptable, but for a traditional Tory like @HYUFD probably an acceptable middle of the road Tory.
None
SKS says now is not the time.
Thay sit in the dark applauding SKS
This is even more pronounced in the rest of northwestern europe.
You would have thought for anyone with a functioning brain five years of no dividends would be a signal to either get out or at least dramatically reduce exposure.
I think that is what is being referred to, here.
If I say that the PM is a dictator, then he puts me in prison as a consequence for saying that, then that shows I am correct and is not free speech.
Consequences from the electorate, or others, is entirely reasonable. Consequences from those in authority whom you are criticising, not so much.
Edit: Warren Buffet has always attributed his success to defining a small set of sensible metrics for the value of a company. And not going “but in this case..”, the way the Wall Street geniuses do.
Leftie lawyers beware. Suella has you in her sights.
(Yes, from a quick search it does appear that they suspended external dividends after 2017).
I would have said that's particularly the case for something like the USS which has such very tightly defined liabilities.
It also appears to be being shockingly badly run, and if a former regulator is the CEO, I would have no confidence that it's been overseen adequately.
Let's also remember that 14.1 billion deficit will not have included the collapse of Thames Water which must have been seen as a gilt.
Campaigners and asylum seekers win court of appeal challenge over Rwanda policy
Campaigners and asylum seekers have won a court of appeal challenge over the government's planned Rwanda deportation scheme.
The majority decision is that “the deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment when in fact they have a good claim for asylum.
"In that sense, Rwanda is not a safe third country."
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-updates-bbc-chair-richard-sharp-resigns-after-admitting-cronyism-row-had-become-distraction-public-sector-strikes-12593360
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-66049895
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_and_Rottingdean_Seashore_Electric_Railway
You have free speech and can say 'kangaroo court' and (other than perhaps, theoretically, libel?) there's no consequence for you as you're not an MP. But if your employer sacks someone and you say, publicly, 'kangaroo court' without some evidence, do you think your employer would take no action?
No one is going to prison over saying this. But free speech doens't mean the right to say whatever you like and be shielded from all consequences.
It pays an internal dividend but I don't know what the significance of that is.
Its a bit like a Venn Diagram. There is a lot of overlap between say yourself, @Richard_Tyndall as you named and myself. I find myself agreeing a lot with Richard (and vice-versa I think too) on many subjects, even if we passionately and vehemently disagree on the subject of planning. Ditto you and I, even if we disagree on Europe.
Interestingly I was pro-Remain until 2016. I've said this before, but it was in part discussions with Richard (along with @Casino_Royale and Boris and Gove) who helped convince me to switch from Remain to Leave.
If their employer wants to kick them out, they can do. At the next General Election.
I've also told Brexiteers to welcome the boat people/asylum seekers to the UK.
What better advert for Brexit that so many want to flee EU countries to come to Brexit Britain.
The USS is an external shareholder.
However - at least it's not just our pension system that's fucked up on a n epochal scale here. Canada's seems to be somehow even worse:
https://www.thameswater.co.uk/about-us/governance/our-structure
Depreciation - not a cashflow
Amortisation - likewise
Interest - in theory, if the business is financed by debt, then any interest payments should be stripped out to show what the business would be like if it wasn't burdened with debt
Tax - not controllable so shouldn't be included
Of course, just attacking the barebones of this:
Depreciation - it may not be a cashflow, but the original purchase of the fixed asset WAS, so why should it be excluded I've no idea?
Amortisation - potentially, if its consolidated goodwill, or goodwill generated by a one off acquisition (trade and asset deal) then yes, I would ignore it. But amortisation could be on computer software (thanks FRS102) or development expenditure. In that case, why would you ignore amortisation? In fact, for development expenditure, it might be better to strip out the amortisation, but add back the amount capitalised as 'true' development spend.
Interest - well, yes, in theory, but you've got to pay it so its still a cashflow albeit one that might not happen if you had no debts.
Tax - you've got to pay it, especially if you're profitably, so why exclude it from the rate of return?
Turning even more to problems with EBITDA:
1) The introduction of IFRS16 (And upcoming incorporation into FRS102) means that rent will now be depreciation and interest, so making EBITDA completely inappropriate anymore.
2) Certain finance directors, upon realising EBITDA is used by the banks, or other lenders, start to do things to cause the auditors a headache.
- Capitalise smaller fixed assets that really should be expensed
- Capitalise 'development' time
- Capitalise training
And then, if that still isn't working just abandon all pretend of 'pushing the boundaries' and capitalise everything. Training, electricity costs, salaries, postage, monthly computer licences, insurance, anything.
Suddenly, fixed assets goes through the roof, depreciation and amortisation go through the roof but EBITDA is vastly improved.
I've had one client do just that. Capitalise everything and then depreciate it aggressively. It means the audit partner can sign clean, because the statutory headings of Turnover, Cost of Sales and Admin expenses are all broadly correct, the balance sheet broadly correct and the PAT broadly correct.
EBITDA is turnover however, but hey, that's for the idiot bank manager to understand why that's not right, not the audit partner. Clean audit report, nice shiny accounts, and everyones a winner until they're not.
Economic metrics: The UK has been outperforming the Eurozone. We grew faster than it in both the 00s and 10s "despite Brexit".
Social: The UK consistently performs as one of the least racist and most tolerant nations.
Investment: The UK consistently achieves the highest levels of investment and has more "unicorns" than any other European country.
Comparison complete. UK looks pretty good to me.
@Mike_Fabricant
I stand by my statement. Some of the members of the Privileges Committee treated their witness, Boris Johnson, with contempt by gestures and other actions. Had it been in a law court, the judge would have called them to order. Respect for the Committee needs to be earned."
https://twitter.com/Mike_Fabricant/status/1674330558426411014
https://twitter.com/TheMendozaWoman/status/1673759331806748684/photo/1
I appreciate your (and Richard's) views on Europe are more niche and thought out.
I note @Sandpit liked your reply. He is another who I often agree with, yet I think our politics do not align.
As as I have mentioned it twice, this is another reason I like the like button. It is not only so I can show my appreciation for a post that I have nothing to add to, but I like to see who has liked my and others posts and I am often pleasantly surprised by who it is.
And our disagreement on Europe pales into insignificance compared to our disagreement on PR vs FPTP (no I'm not going there).
As with most things
Ive told him Im not forking out for a dinghy if he wants to come home.
I’ve been head down in the area for more than four years now, specifically in the field of the Abingdon super-reservoir. I started thinking “Good idea. Reservoirs are good, right?” but ran into a thicket of issues which turned me around.
Reservoirs store water. They’re reliant on their input sources and only as useful as the network to get water out of them and to the consumer. That network (small scale and large scale – the latter of which is almost totally absent) is the crucial area of water infrastructure.
That small-scale network is the water that comes to your house. This network leaks nearly half the water between input and output. To put it another way, we could double the effective reservoir capacity simply by fixing leaks. It’s not as simple as saying it, but leakage reduction should be front and centre until it’s hugely reduced. But it’s not sexy and doesn’t give companies a concomitant increase in Regulated Capital Asset Value against their expenditure.
The large scale network is a National Water Grid, with inter-region water transfers at scale and on demand. In England alone, the wettest region gets six times the rainfall as the driest region – but water stays almost entirely in-region, so the water-stressed regions are completely dependent on the most water-stressed rivers and aquifers to refresh their reservoirs. “We have a water distribution issue, not a water shortage issue.”
However – the companies that need the water would be paying the companies supplying the water, and the capital asset value doesn’t go to the companies needing the water. Again, commercially unwelcome.
We’ve seen the demand side of the equation debated, and there’s a big conversation to be had there: is it really wise to use drinking water to clean your car, flush your toilet, and so forth during a water shortage? Making ALL water into drinking water is costly, laborious, and involves leaking more and more through that leaky old piping system…
In addition, fitting water meters means that people almost all tend to moderate consumption off their own bat (when you see how much you use, you instinctively avoid wasting it).
(1/3)
How big is “super-reservoir”? Well, it’s over thirty times the size of the median reservoir capacity in England. Sixteen times the size of Farmoor reservoir up the road. And as a bunded reservoir, it’s built up, not down.
So, let’s gloss over the huge local disruption, the dislodging of the flood plain meaning that Abingdon and surrounding villages would regularly flood (which is something frowned upon these days), the microclimate fogs it would cause on the A34, the security implications of protecting something holding back five times the mass of water as the mass of Swindon and all that’s in it, the geoengineering aspects of something that heavy flexing down and up on the clay floor of the Vale of White Horse and so forth – because, let’s face it, for most people, that’s someone else’s problem. If it provides a big regional benefit, sacrificing locals can be a price most are willing to pay.
Except… it would be totally dependent on the water-stressed Thames to fill and refill. If we don’t have long droughts, it’d be unnecessary (population growth isn’t nearly enough to justify something that huge, not by a long long way). But if we do have long deep droughts (which isn’t implausible with climate change)… it’d run dry. It’d have been unusable for half of the 1976-77 drought, and those are exactly the droughts for which we’d like improved infrastructure.
I mean, taking that local hit is painful, yes, but if it provided something really useful to all of us, rather than just to offset huge debts for a water company and permit them to further increase their bills – that’s hard to take.
Not to mention that due to its immense size and megaproject complexity (involving rerouting main roads, electrical backbones, and developing the expertise to make a bunded reservoir far huger than any ever built in the UK), it’d take a long time before it could feasibly provide a drop of water to anyone. We’re talking approaching 2050… if Thames Water turn out to be so amazingly good at megaproject management as to come in on time and budget against an optimistic schedule. Realistically, it wouldn’t give anything during the lives of most of us here.
(2/3)
So – fix leaks. Install water meters. Build the National Water Grid. If reservoirs are then still needed, build many small and dispersed ones, as close to the consumer as possible. But a super-reservoir that won’t give anything in our lifetimes other than figures on a balance sheet for a badly run company in loads of debt, won’t even provide the drought resilience we want, and will be used to force delay to all the rest of it… that’s not a good idea.
(3/3)
But considering the issue is not the business fundamentals, but that the company is too indebted, there's no particular reason why that needs to happen. It may happen if nobody wants to touch it, but if the bondholders take an appropriate haircut then the problem largely goes away.
The bondholders taking a haircut and owning the company as a result may be better for the bondholders than being completely wiped out. But either way the taxpayer must not in my eyes bail out either the bondholders or the shareholders. Their investment, their responsibility.
Fix leaks as a priority,
However they also need to fix Ofwat, who somehow have missed that adding 10 million people to the population requires major investment in storage capacity and the infrastructure to support it.
I try to like posts that make me think, even if I don’t agree with everything, and try to avoid liking posts that are negative or personal.
I think I agree with @BartholomewRoberts on most things, except gender stuff in schools and Emma Raducanu. That last one cost me £100, but I now feel vindicated in my 2021 view that she was more of a one-hit wonder than Rick Astley.
We are skint, in part because of government failures, but skint nonetheless.
I suspect that is something they want to avoid if they can. If only because it will show with embarrassing clarity just how appalling our regulation of them has been.
So although I agree with you, I think a rescue of some sort is likely.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12245953/Putin-given-rock-star-welcome-Dagestan-poses-kissing-selfies-adoring-fans.html
Much discussion at the time of privatisation about the crumbling nature of a lot of the victorian sewer infrastructure, for example.
And certainly the idea that councils would lose most of the proceeds of housing sales was widely condemned at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLi4bz2GS20
Rather confusingly there is another electric railway, still running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4PZhYrX_pY