Fixing a hole

Not around here, they're not

by Rick Johansen

Looking out of my window this morning, I see water gushing through the pavement from a burst water main outside next door’s house, and I force myself to think about Margaret Thatcher. The miserable legacy of her 11 long years as prime minister still hangs over this country, like an endless black cloud, in so many areas, our privatised water companies being just one example.

We, the Great British Public, used to own our water until 1989 when Thatcher decided to “privatise” it. 2.5 million people applied for what was in effect free money, as the grossly underpriced shares were soon sold off by most people at huge profit, mainly to private equity, institutional investors and large infrastructure firms from abroad. Since then, some £57 billion – £57 BILLION – has been paid out by the privatised water companies in share dividends, money that should have been ours, invested in improving services and keeping bills down. Instead, we are facing price increases of 20% this year, which is slightly above today’s inflation rate of 2.5%.

If the services provided by privatised water companies were top notch and our rivers and seas were not literally full of shit, you might think, well, we are paying through the nose, but it’s worth it. Instead, we’re holding our noses because it isn’t. You can look at so many things about this country and justifiably blame Thatcher. She almost destroyed the NHS, was the architect of today’s housing crisis by flogging off council properties and not replenishing the stock, she created the greed is good attitude and “fuck thy neighbour” and she sold off all the things we owned, like gas, electric and water. Today, outside my front door is another example.

This leak, which has been belching out water for over two days, was first reported by neighbours and also by me. Mid afternoon on the first day, an official from Bristol Water parked next to the leak for a while, then moved away, eventually moving away to a nearby street where, I am pretty sure, there was no leak. I cannot know why he was sitting there and not here and I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he was carrying out vital work on behalf of customers. With Christ knows how many gallons of water still flowing down our street, and no workmen in sight, there is no evidence that suggests a repair is anywhere nearer.

I have no idea how much water is belching up through the pavement and working its way along our road until it finds a drain, but I would imagine there are many gallons of water emerging every single minute of the day and night. It seems to me to represent an incredible waste of water, presumably too of money and frankly it just seems wrong that when people are paying through the nose, as I said earlier, for their water, quite a lot of it is going to waste. Still, I suppose private equity, institutional investors and large infrastructure firms from abroad do not give a toss as long as their pockets are being lined with money they are ripping off from ordinary folk like you and me.

I am a little old fashioned when it comes to things like this. I don’t believe the public should own resources like water, gas and electric because I am a soggy, left of centre, liberal socialist. It’s much simpler than that. No group of private equity, institutional investors and large infrastructure firms from abroad should own things that belong to us. Water, gas and electric are essentials, not some added luxury we enjoy for the fun of it, like Champagne. The free market didn’t invent water so why should it have a monopoly of water?

Meanwhile, the water still flows down our road, the crack in the pavement is now wider than it was before and there is, of course, no sign of the water company to fix it.

I do not pretend that everything was hunky dory in the days before Thatcher sold everything we owned off to her rich pals in the city, but at least you could say that they were run as a public service and not just to make money. You’d like to think that at least part of that £59 billion of our money that has been handed to in the main wealthy shareholders just might have been spent on the creaking infrastructure they now preside over.

I prefer a mixed economy, which includes a bit of socialism (public services, like the NHS, and yes, the utilities) and capitalism (most other things) but Thatcher’s legacy is a world of Gordon Gekkos, of greed and exploitation, companies run solely to extract the maximum amount from the consumer for the minimum public service they can get away with.

That’s what this hole in the pavement just along from our house is all about. These water companies – ours, Bristol Water, is owned by a lumbering behemoth of a company called Pennon Group – exist solely to make money. That’s why no one has bothered to fix our burst water main yet.  They have greater priorities, like satisfying their shareholders. The little people, which is nearly all of us, can wait.

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