George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.socialFour things to say about the £23bn Thames Water needs for infrastructure repair:
1. As I understand it, this covers only extreme, emergency repairs, for infrastructure that’s about to fail or has already done so.
2. It’s almost certainly an underestimate.
Another short privatisation🧵
3.It comes on top of Thames Water’s £15bn debt.
4. It also comes on top of the company’s far greater backlog in infrastructure spending since privatisation, of money that should have been spent to bring facilities up to date, meet the needs of a higher population and stop poisoning our rivers.
That could run into many tens, even hundreds of billions.
God knows who will pay for this, if anyone ever does. Perhaps it has gone beyond that point.
Perhaps the only infrastructure spending from now on will be for extreme, emergency repairs, and people will live with a failing system for the rest of their lives. The private sector won’t pick up that tab, and I doubt any government will.
So much for the efficiencies of privatisation.
I would love to believe we could claw some of this money back. But the main beneficiaries of this legalised theft are long gone - and protected by our extreme and ridiculous limited liability laws, anyway.
(Here's an article I wrote about limited liability: www.monbiot.com )
Other People’s Money
Make bosses pay for the disasters they cause By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 24th May 2018 Once more, they walk away. The senior bosses at Carillion, like those at RBS, Northern Rock an...
www.monbiot.com
Talking of which, why do we so seldom discuss limited liability? In its current form, it’s another great theft that we have naturalised and normalised. We fail to see what a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and the honest to the crooked it permits.
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Four things to say about the £23bn Thames Water needs for infrastructure repair:
1. As I understand it, this covers only extreme, emergency repairs, for infrastructure that’s about to fail or has alre...
skywriter.blue