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    44 Comments

    1. Asleep_Writer6444 on

      Fuck me so fed up of hearing about them. We are one the only nations that has privatized water and it has failed at every level. Can anyone really argue they feel fine that our nations water resources are owned and managed by foreign companies or pensions. It’s an absolute fucking joke.

    2. Considering the fact that my thames water bill has risen by 37%, I’m finding it difficult to feel any empathy. I sincerely hope they go under and go under public ownership.

    3. Humble-Variety-2593 on

      Good. Let it fail and seize the assets of everyone involved in this nonsense.

    4. Its bad enough that they’re being bailed out by the Government for £3bn (Which some of the upcoming welfare cuts are paying towards).

      Now they want to be spared additional fines?

      Let these people go bankrupt and under, nationalise Thames Water when they’ve got absolutely nothing left so it costs the taxpayer absolutely nothing.

      Every Brit had the right to drink clean safe water and bathe in clean safe water – If a private company is breaching that basic human right, then they need to be prosecuted and taken into public ownership.

    5. Zealousideal-Cry0 on

      Let them go bust, establish a new public company and buy their assets for pennies on the pound. That is what should be allowed to happen to all the scum water companies.

    6. Harmless_Drone on

      I hope the bidders do walk away so we can nationalize it when collapses, Thanks. This company isn’t worth anything. Fuck these assholes and their shareholders.

    7. Me: yeh fuck Thames water and fuck their greedy fucking shareholders.

      Also me: member of pension scheme that owns majority share in Thames water.

    8. Logical_Classic_4451 on

      The bosses should be in jail. Paying dividends when the company is basically bankrupt is illegal.

    9. snakeoildriller on

      Time for the shareholders to step up and sort out their troubled Golden Goose.

    10. I honestly think the government should put them on 12 months notice to outlaw dividends from them until they are up to standard and solvent.

      They’ll soon step up their game

    11. All water supply should be government owned, when profits go above service it’s only the public that gets screwed

    12. That_Touch5280 on

      Thatchers dream in ruins, who’d have thunk it! Utilities are not for profit, they are to service society!

    13. -Drunken_Jedi- on

      GOOD! That way they can be taken back into public ownership and sorted out, no more millions going into shareholder pockets via dividends whilst people have literal shit floating down their rivers.

    14. selina_hebe_ella on

      We really need a new body to replace Ofwat – and Thames Water should be denied their request and be forced to cover the costs themselves!

      Why should us taxpayers keep paying for their mistakes?

    15. PM_me_Henrika on

      How about this. In exchanging for jailing and fining their executives and major shareholders, we spare Thames water the fines and penalties, and bring them into the warm embrace of national management.

    16. I’ve said this in a similar thread, but I think it’s absolutely mental that essential infrastructure like water, sanitation, power, communication and transport are allowed to be run for private profit.
      Letting corporations milk them for every drop of value they can squeeze out while running the service, and then when it inevitably collapses from mismanagement, getting bailed out (which comes from our tax money) or taking on massive debt (which we all pay for through increased billing) is a shameful system.
      Aside from the clear evidence that time and time again these services gets worsened to syphon off ever-increasing profit, given the current global instability in nation relations and international markets, not being in full governance of our own critical networks seems extremely short-sighted.

    17. Timely-Helicopter173 on

      My heart bleeds, how can you give out huge bonuses and show it to be a cash machine for investors if there’s consequences and stuff.

    18. Quite frankly after the rampant fraud there lucky they can walk away. They should be imprisoned.

    19. OStO_Cartography on

      I love how Thames Water is desperately trying to pretend that it’s massive financial black hole just dropped out of the sky, and isn’t the product of taking literal billions of pounds in over-leveraged loans and paying them out immediately as dividends and executive pay packages.

    20. MostlyDisappointing on

      Letting this shit show die is such an easy win for Labour, so obviously we should expect a bailout

    21. My bill just went from 350 to like 550 something. They can go fuck themselves. If we are going to get fucked anyway I’d rather it be nationalised since it’s coming out of our paychecks regardless

    22. 1995LexusLS400 on

      Oh no. Well if all bidders walk away, it seems like the government will have to take control. After that, they should take control of the rest of the water companies.

      The fact that a utility service such as water is run by for profit corporations is absurd.

    23. I’m a Thames water customer. I’ve been paying 1/4 of my bills to service their debt.

      If Thames Water stays privatized, they will leech as much money from all of their customers, like me, to service their debts and pay dividends. Money that I could have spent and paid UK taxes on.

      Either way, public or privatised, the government will be losing out on tax income regardless.

      Best to find a way to bring them back to the public sector with as little money wasted as possible.

      Why does the world see Britain as such a soft touch that they’ve bought a ton of our public services to use as a piggy bank. It’s a complete joke.

    24. Plantain-Feeling on

      Damn awful shame really

      But that’s business

      Can’t afford to pay for it then you lose it

    25. So, corporation ignores public safety rules, saves money by cutting corners.
      Makes more profit, pays share holders larger dividends
      Public picks up the environmental costs.
      Now they’ve been caught, and face fines, they want to not pay them, because that would cause them to be less profitable and less attractive.
      Want their cake, and everyone else’s cake to eat.
      That’s simply the cost of business, if you can’t operate legally, then you can’t operate.

    26. who_me_yes_me2 on

      Providing water is just a sideline for many of the water utilities – their primary purpose appears to be financial engineering: using their assets and captive customer base to borrow money to fund dividends. If they were a water company they would have borrowed to invest in infrastructure.

    27. ElvishMystical on

      This is just another symptom. Maybe collectively we need to be sucking corporate dick a lot less as a national pastime because we only end up getting robbed and cheated.

    28. Won’t someone please think of the next foreign owners and let the current foreign owners off without a fine?

    29. heimdallofasgard on

      Cry me a sewage filled river.

      The bosses just want to walk away with a payday instead of bankruptcy on their CVs and convictions.

    30. Brave_Ring_1136 on

      The best thing we can do as a people now is accept that protesting does nothing and switch to violent uprisings. If we burnt every assets Thames Water had, they would claim on the insurance and they they would have to fix shit.

    31. The bidders are a Chinese firm or an American equity firm. Let them walk Thames Water belongs to Britain!

    32. The_Geralt_Of_Trivia on

      I think we should consider that. Any penalties we apply will just be passed onto the customers (us).

      Instead, the bonuses of all directors and senior staff should be clawed back. We need a law that makes it illegal to pay bonuses to directors of the major services (gas/water/electricity) if they are guilty of wrongdoing.

    33. missingpieces82 on

      It’s disgraceful that the folks who run it haven’t been locked away, and all shareholders had their assets stripped. Makes me so angry because it proves that the rich get away with whatever they want.

    34. Good, really don’t care how much it costs tax payers in the end as long as the thieves running Thames water are long gone.

      Although, No doubt the ones at the top will get golden parachutes and sail into Monacos harbour with there yachts while UK media screams for there heads.

    35. colin_staples on

      Tough fucking shit

      You mismanaged the company, accumulated enormous debts, under-invested in infrastructure, paid all the money as dividends, with the intention of letting others (creditors, the taxpayer) holding the bag

      Fuck you

      The company should go bankrupt, the state should pick it up for pennies (with the debts wiped out, which is what typically happens with bankruptcy), and the bosses should be prosecuted

      And as for the “well lots of pension funds invested in Thames Water” argument, news flash : the value of investments can do down as well as up. They made bad choices. We taxpayers shouldn’t be stiffed for billions because of their mistakes.

    36. Hopefully the govt will buy it for 25 pence. And then launch a fraud investigations. It all seems so dodgy.