As The Telegraph notes in an e-mail this morning:

Thames Water took an extra step in the direction of nationalisation after shareholders mentioned they might not present it with a £500m lifeline.

The troubled utility firm was advised it had not glad the situations to obtain the primary tranche of assist outlined as a part of its three-year turnaround plan.

It had been anticipating the half a billion pound cost by March 31, however shareholders mentioned they might not present the money because the regulatory necessities on the corporate make it “uninvestible”.

I consider these shareholders. I believe they’re proper. Thames Water and the entire of the English water business, is uninvestable. I made that case in a report that I printed final summer season, suggesting not simply that this sector was in monetary bother, largely due to elevated rates of interest, however that it was additionally environmentally bancrupt, as a result of there was no sensible risk that it might adapt to the requirement that they each ship clear water and clear rivers and seashores whereas concurrently assembly net-zero targets.

My estimate was that this business was not just a bit in need of the funding that it wanted. As a substitute I prompt that it may be as a lot as £250 billion in need of the cash required to attain these objectives. The evaluation was based mostly upon official info produced for the federal government and commented upon in Home of Lords experiences.

It’s, in that case, time for any authorities, together with the one which we have now in ready, to get up and odor the espresso. The concept water can proceed to be provided by personal corporations in search of to make a revenue from this exercise is now so absurd that it should be consigned to historical past as one of many best follies of privatisation, ever. They need to additionally acknowledge the large worth that we have now paid for this folly, represented in no small half by the huge portions of human waste that now pollutes so lots of our waterways and seashores.

Nevertheless, can we actually count on any such acknowledgement from the Conservatives? Franklin, I doubt it.

Can we additionally actually count on Labour to confess that nationalisation may be a solution to a query, given its present closely pro-neoliberal stance? Equally, I can’t.

In that case, I’ve a horrible concern that each the Tories and Labour to return, will proceed to pour cash into completely ineffective franchise water operations that seemingly exist solely to reward the administrators and shareholders of those operations for exactly no worth added, and a whole lack of expertise or knowledge on their half.

That mentioned, the disaster that’s clearly unfolding at Thames Water offers a really clear litmus check for Labour. Will it, as I’m count on, keep on with dogma over want? Or would possibly or not it’s that they lastly come to phrases with actuality and realise that there’s a position for the state? Their response to this situation would possibly inform us what the reply to that query is.

I’m not dwelling in hope.