ATTENTION Mid-Beds by-election punters – politicalbetting.com
ATTENTION Mid-Beds by-election punters – politicalbetting.com
Twenty days ago Nadine Dorries announced that she was standing down as a MP for Mid Bedfordshire with “immediate effect”. She still hasn’t submitted her resignation.
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I suggested at the time that she wasn’t going to go through with it. She won’t give up one prize unless she is given another.
'Would be highly profitable' assumes that they've been spending sufficient money to maintain infrastructure; the evidence is that they haven't.
Putting the business into administration assumes no risks to continuing operations. Politically, that's a fairly brave assumption.
And if course one of the reasons they have so much debt is that they've financed spending with debt rather than cash generated from operations.
Which makes the profitability assumption dubious.
RFK Jr. argues gun control cannot ‘meaningfully’ reduce gun violence
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4072813-rfk-jr-argues-gun-control-cannot-meaningfully-reduce-gun-violence/
RFK Jr. won’t commit to supporting Biden if he loses primary
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4072758-rfk-jr-wont-commit-to-supporting-biden-if-he-loses-primary/
RFK Jr.: ‘I’m proud that President Trump likes me’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4072768-rfk-jr-im-proud-that-president-trump-likes-me/
The current crisis will see the credit rating agencies slash the available credit in the market.
Companies insuring their TW debts so they can use invoice discounting will suddenly find they cant trade that much with TW and will have to ask for pro forma payments. This will increase the cash squeeze on TW.
When I worked in a water industry supplier TW were always what we called a slow payer. If they get even slower this will impact the work we can do. Even worse they are due to acquire the Thames Tideway infrastructure when it is complete. Funding this could be a challenge.
I wonder if the House of Commons will suspend the disruptive Conservative MPs long enough for their constituents to be able to go for a recall. And if that should happen, in how many seats would the constituents be motivated to back a recall. And if they did in some seats, whether they might feel inclined to dispose of Mad Nad, who doesn't seem to be doing anything useful these days.
Just a thought.
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.
It has accumulated a very large amount of debt over the last two decades, much of it at a time when interest rates were at historic (and unlikely to be repeated anytime soon) lows.
It's now apparent that there was underinvestment across the entire industry despite that. Which calls into question all the reported profits (which Robert alludes to at the top of the thread).
It shouldn’t be cancelled.
Instead, it should be changed to ‘Greasy Johnsonite.’
With no option of refusal.
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
.
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/29/china-wind-solar-power-global-renewable-energy-leader
Kennedy is an interestest character, he goes from being a seemingly normal Democrat candidate, to some very extreme views, from one minute to the next. He’s doing a lot of long-form interviews and podcasts, so there is an awful lot of material out there - if not on YouTube, who are going around deleting a lot of it, which leads to all sorts of other questions around freedom of speech for a candidate. It’s not difficult to imagine both Trump and Kennedy running as independents.
Brilliant by @RhonddaBryant on
@BBCr4today calling out the R4 presenters discussing the Privileges Committee & referring to Boris Johnson's 'jeremiad'. Chris Bryant corrected them by saying that Jeremiah told the truth so this couldn't be used in relation to Johnson!
https://twitter.com/StuartHarriso10/status/1674303842454839298
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12245685/Fears-grow-four-water-firms-Thames-Water-teeters-brink-collapse.html
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.'
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.
Whatever that means.
https://twitter.com/Councillorsuzie/status/1323897567026008064
I think that is the most inept political poster I have ever seen.
She is Susan Hall, apparently, a tory hopeful.
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:
https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/-/media/ScottishWater/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports/210722SCW2204AnnualReport2022AWNonRestricted_V3.pdf
This zombie government too, for that matter.
As for the rest - well, the shadow cabinet doesn't fill me with confidence about their competence or their charm. Remember Lucy Powell? 'In the real world where I live, unlike you...' Plus, they will be deep in hock to a Civil Service that seems to have the joint intellectual capacity of an imbecile and the integrity of a Goebbels.
What they will be is different. And that's important if our system is to survive at all.
The other is the one to get nitty gritty things done. Realistic plans and schemes to improve lives.
Boris, whatever was wrong about him (and was wrong at the time) was a damn good Mayor of the first sort. Sadiq is good on the second front but not the first. Nothing wrong with that- my distant impression is that Andy Street does the same sort of thing with a blue tint in the West Midlands.
Really good Mayors manage both. Prime Ken did it, Andy Burnham seems similar. Steve Norris might well have been the same. Part of the problem for London Conservatives is that they seem bent on choosing a candidate who does neither.
The plan was take the pain in 2023, fix the economy and services, get inflation and migration down and then say "look, we're delivering". The only minor problem being they are failing on every measure given by Sunak as the so-called people's priorities.
So they have only one tactic left - political "violence". The right wing hate mob (Express / Mail / GBeebies etc) will put out the most outrageous and extreme stories - Labour will kill the firstborn male child in every household AND steal your pension to give it to asylum seekers kind of thing.
Like in the Currygate fandango, they will create a lie, repeat it every day to draw in the weak minded and stupid to hopefully say "well there must be *something* bad here because they're still talking about it". But not curry, worse. The only positive being that I expect the target will be so wide of the mark that it will be laughed at rather than effective.
I don't have much faith in Labour either, but they will be a fair bit better or "less bad", and equally importantly it is part of making the Tories better again, which will probably take 10 years now as too many of the sensibles have left or been kicked out since 2015.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66028606
That's what's so infuriating about the Conservatives right now.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/28/despair-britons-hopeful-john-harris-society-politics
"Now, I hear echoes of the weariness and bafflement I used to associate with the post-industrial places whose furies took us out of the EU, but this time in our market towns and suburbs. I worry about that. I think we all should."
Levelling down in action.
This latter point is why I expect the election to be such a punishment beating. People do not like being lied to their faces. Yet that is what the government do - inflation is down, migration is stopping, investment is flowing, services have record money - all blatant lies that most of the electorate know and see and experience are lies. Yet they lie anyway, and sneer about anyone who says otherwise.
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.
This should have restricted the amount of debt they were allowed to carry, no matter how cheap it was at the time. It is absolutely basic. These companies have become bets on the gilt market but not very good ones since the betting was all one way.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/liberals-hold-the-key-to-next-eu-house-majority-report/?utm_source=EURACTIV&utm_campaign=e8d5ea9c84-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_23_12_36_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-8777897010-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19674520.fact-check-scotland-immune-sewage-waterways/
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).
What a mess-up. In fact that's an understatement ; what an epochal, symbolic fiasco.
The issue now is the breakdown in that post-Thatcher settlement. Brexit was for millions a direct rebellion against the long-term decay and decline that so many communities have suffered in this era. The Johnson government promising money a direct result. But there is no money, and not only has the market overseen the hollowing out of public service provision, its doing so in a way that threatens pensions if these outfits implode like a carbon-fibre submarine under the weight of their own debts.
Lots paid for poor services, and companies crushed by massive debt.
The money has gone somewhere, hasn't it...?
As people realise they have been scammed by the spivocracy, the post-Brexit settlement will see us move to the same StateCo model which works so successfully in much of Europe (and up here in Scotland with water etc). Because we won't have much of a choice.
It’s a bit like Everton where the team have some good players but a lot of dross and they lost a lot of their better players over the years without being replaced. They had a selection of managers from winners such as Ancelotti to the Privately educated Tory who could charm decision makers and sound intelligent on TV, Lampard, who left them on the edge of oblivion.
They’ve finally got a dull but competent manager to try and keep them in the game the problem has been that behind the scenes there have been questions about Russian money but most importantly the board have been shit and disfunctional and ultimately in charge of who gets hired and what happens behind the scenes.
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.
All investments can go down as well as up.
If shareholders make a bad investment that's not the taxpayers responsibility.
I think however it would be better just to rename them. So the last OFSTED inspector I had in my classroom should have been working for offclothes (if that sounds creepy, he was) OFQUAL should be renamed offtheirfaces because they must have been when they designed the new exams, and for ofwat we should adopt the name suggested by Jasper Carrott in 1992 - offpiss.
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.
Nice to see the Daily Mail coming out so strongly against private health care.
And Just Stop Oil can celebrate a successful mission, getting on several front pages thanks to Bairstow.
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.
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.
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.
Too much of what she promised has turned out to be a short-term sticking plaster, or outright fantasy, and there will always be the question having over this of what would have happened if the Continental, SDP/Liberal Alliance route had been taken instead.
Where to even start with this one. Do people worry about the US' "investibility" when Pan-Am went bust ???
What do we even actually have left to sell from public ownership any more ?
Investors can read balance sheets and make good, bad or indifferent decisions.
The right decision here is to simply let Thames Water fail then pick it for £1 or some such once it's in administration.
'In the long run, we are all dead.'
But the same could be said for bailing them out.
Yes, this very much includes the £2trn national debt, as governments of all colours havn’t run a budget surplus for more than two decades. If government ends up paying say 5% average on that £2trn, that’s £100bn a year in debt interest!
As for Thames Water, if they can’t refinance their debts for a sensible amount, then the bondholders will have no choice but to enforce a bankruptcy and take over management themselves, wiping out the existing shareholders.
Let’s not forget also, that many of these shareholders are pension funds, who saw utilities as a stable source of dividend payments over the years, and didn’t necessarily pay a lot of attention to the management of the companies.
I'm not saying the pre Thatcher model worked that great either BTW. We have some thinking to do in terms of how we organise things.
But the private profit/public bailout model needs to be a thing of the past. If Thames Water is a private company then shareholders need to bear its losses. If it isn't a private company then why have shareholders been able to take so much money out of it while loading it with debt that they want consumers and taxpayers to service?
They really have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Make Nadine Dorries the CEO of Thames.
She's used to working with a lot of shit.
And it would solve the by-election market problem.