Thames Water Failing: Thatcher left this country “Plundered”

The betrayal continues. No matter the rosette colour pinned to the government benches, the result remains grimly consistent: a conveyor belt of public money into private pockets. Our water, our energy, our railways, our NHS, each transformed into extraction machines designed to siphon wealth from the many to the few. Our resources, our basic needs, our pockets, they steal from…

Thames Water stands as perhaps the most grotesque monument to this national plundering. Drowning in £20 billion of debt, leaking both sewage and money, teetering on the edge of collapse, and yet somehow, miraculously, always managing to find the cash for the executive bonus.

Rewarding Failure: The New British Business Model

This week revealed the obscene spectacle of Thames Water’s top brass set to pocket eye-watering “retention incentives” as part of a £3 billion emergency loan deal. Let that sink in. Not performance bonuses. Not rewards for excellence. But “retention incentives”, lavish payouts simply for deigning to remain at their desks while the ship sinks beneath them.

Chief Executive Chris Weston, fresh from his stint at British Gas, where he mastered the art of extracting maximum profit from essential services, has already pocketed a £195,000 bonus for just three months of work. This comes atop a pay package worth up to £2.3 million per year. This despite his crime of presiding over a utility that dumps raw sewage into our rivers and seas while its infrastructure crumbles.

When confronted by MPs, Chairman Sir Adrian Montague, a veteran City figure whose career spans the privatisation gold rush, explained with patrician condescension that these bonuses were necessary to prevent rival firms from “picking off” their executives. The implication being clear: It seems failure in the private sector is handsomely rewarded and the monopoly of water companies just can’t wait to employ those responsible for failure. They must be lining up to poach executives from a company drowning in debt, reliant on hedge fund loans charging nearly 10% interest, and facing potential collapse. Perhaps there’s a booming market for those skilled in the art of corporate catastrophe? The public sector would be so lucky…

Of course, Weston apologised to customers and promised to turn the failing utility company around… as he stated: “I’m sorry that the service that the customers receive… it’s not where we would like it to be, everyone is very committed in terms of trying and sorting it out. “So, absolutely I’m very sorry about the service some people receive, but it will absolutely get fixed.”, ranks among the emptiest corporate mea culpas in recent memory. Like a schoolboy forced to say sorry while hiding a smirk and crossing his fingers behind his back, these hollow words come from a man simultaneously accepting bonuses of £195,000 after only three months in his post.

The tense appearance in front of MPs from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee revealed not contrition but contempt, the contempt of those who know they will never truly be held accountable, who understand that Britain’s privatised utilities operate in a consequence-free zone where failure is rewarded and the public always foots the bill.

The Political Kabuki Theatre

The government’s department said after Tuesday’s hearing: “We inherited a water system that rewarded failure, with polluting water bosses paying themselves unfair multi-million-pound bonuses.” “This government says no more. Under the Water Act, from this year undeserved multi-million-pound bonuses will no longer be paid.”

The truth? Ministers of both parties have allowed this disaster to fester for decades. They’ve been happy to let our vital infrastructure become a feeding trough for corporate greed, content to issue stern press releases while cashing in on the revolving door between politics and the privatised utilities.

The Water Act they trumpet will supposedly end “undeserved multi-million-pound bonuses” from “this year”, but we’ve heard promises before. Banker bonus spring to mind… The regulatory system has been captured by the very entities it’s meant to control, with Ofwat proving as effective at protecting public interests as a chocolate teapot is at brewing tea.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman for the environment, food and rural affairs, said: “It is outrageous that whilst Thames Water are accumulating seemingly exponential debt, they are choosing to give themselves enormous bonuses. In the meantime, they are passing the buck to customers who are being slapped with eye-watering bills.”

It’s a Ransom, Not the Rescue

Of course, we all know this is not a rescue, it’s a ransom… Thames Water knows the government cannot allow it to fail, water is rather essential, after all, so it holds a gun to the nation’s head. Pay the executives, or the sewage gets it. Approve the rate increases, or watch the infrastructure crumble further. Look the other way while we pocket millions, or face the political consequences of a utility collapse.

And the arrogance is breathtaking. The way Weston and Montague addressed parliamentarians revealed not executives answerable to democratic oversight but aristocrats irritated at having to explain themselves to the peasantry.

Thatcher’s True Legacy

This is the true legacy of Thatcherism: essential services transformed into profit centres, natural monopolies handed to private interests, the basics of civilized society, clean water, functioning sewers, repackaged as commodities from which value can be extracted rather than foundations upon which society rests.

When Margaret Thatcher sold off water, she promised efficiency, innovation, and better service. Instead, we got debt-laden companies, crumbling infrastructure, sewage-filled rivers, and a cadre of executives who extract millions while delivering nothing but excuses.

If anything deserves renationalisation, it’s water. Not because it’s ideological, but because the experiment has failed. Not because it’s politically convenient, but because it’s a national disgrace to have our rivers running with sewage while executives and foreign hedge funders run away with millions.

At the end of all this, we all know who will end up footing the bill. It won’t be Weston or Montague or the hedge funds or the shareholders who extracted billions over decades. It will be us, through higher bills, through public bailouts, through the environmental damage that will take generations to repair.

This is Thatcher’s true bequest: a nation plundered while those doing the plundering are rewarded for their efficiency in extracting wealth rather than delivering service.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to renationalise water. The question is whether we can afford not to.

Paul Knaggs