UK Strategic Planning

[blandy]

35 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Thames Water was debt free when it went private.

Only because when Thatcher privatised it, she wrote off the debt of the nationalised water company which was in 1989 £5 billion. They were all loss making when publicly owned too. Obviously the privatisation has made things worse, with all the dividends and stuff taken out.

Rot in Hell, Thatch.

[Xann]

I think the article that best explained the water blag, and the way service had deliberately been run into the ground beforehand was lost in the Great Tory Thread Deletion.

Pretty sure I did put up another article that was half as good, since? It may not have had the preamble?

[MaVilla]

the UK has been in decline for nearly 20 years now, and i dont see it changing any time soon, you could probably argue there has been a form of decline for 20+ years, but it wasnt as obvious.

Honestly, if i were younger, i would leave to find a future elsewhere, although tbf, a lot of the west is in decline to some degree, or varying degrees, some more than others ofc, but generally speaking.

I also dont seen any particular political party being able to fix it, its gone too far and any proposed changes would be fiddling around the edges, which our political class seem good at doing, ie: doing a lot of nothing, or even doing a lot of what is actually detrimental to us.

I also tend to think that we as a country have lost the ability to think strategically and long term, the past quarter of a century has just been running around putting fires out, and short term thinking, we have no ideology, or plan, or long term strategy i dont think.

The UK is done i reckon, at least until/unless some major, major changes are made, and by major i mean a major social and political upheaval, it will get worse before it gets better i think.

 

 

[chrisp65]

24 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

the UK has been in decline for nearly 20 years now, and i dont see it changing any time soon, you could probably argue there has been a form of decline for 20+ years, but it wasnt as obvious.

Honestly, if i were younger, i would leave to find a future elsewhere, although tbf, a lot of the west is in decline to some degree, or varying degrees, some more than others ofc, but generally speaking.

I also dont seen any particular political party being able to fix it, its gone too far and any proposed changes would be fiddling around the edges, which our political class seem good at doing, ie: doing a lot of nothing, or even doing a lot of what is actually detrimental to us.

I also tend to think that we as a country have lost the ability to think strategically and long term, the past quarter of a century has just been running around putting fires out, and short term thinking, we have no ideology, or plan, or long term strategy i dont think.

The UK is done i reckon, at least until/unless some major, major changes are made, and by major i mean a major social and political upheaval, it will get worse before it gets better i think.

 

 

The bit I’d disagree with, is the lack of ideology. There absolutely is an ideology, albeit wrong. Perhaps the problem is that both the largest parties have the same ideology and have persuaded great swathes of the voting public that it is the only viable ideology.

That the market is king and that the economy of a nation state is run on similar lines to a domestic household budget.

 

[blandy]

11 hours ago, Xann said:

the way service had deliberately been run into the ground

That’s the thing with being publicly owned. The government of the day can be as dreadful an owner as some private company. “Yeah, nationalise it, and put Chris Grayling in charge, that’ll sort out all the problems”.

[chrisp65]

I don’t think anyone believes that state run enterprise is a golden ticket that guarantees better performance. But I think most people can see that it has the potential to be more directly accountable on performance and less likely to be used first and foremost as a financial tool to extract benefit for owners hiding behind holding companies.

It’s an absolute monopoly, you cannot choose whose pipes you get what water from. We don’t allow a monopoly of newspapers and we don’t want foreign governments controlling newspapers. I’d expect some similar level of caution for drinking water.

Incidentally, it was one of those famous Starmer pledges (still on the website btw), that they would bring water back in to state ownership. Although last week, they did say that Labour and the country didn’t have the time or the money to do that. Whether what he writes or what he says is what he’ll do I guess that’s for all of us to take a punt on. So nothing is going to change any time soon from the two party system. It just depends on whether Thames decide to hand back the keys. They appear to hold pretty much all the cards. If there’s sufficient profit, they’ll keep it. If there isn’t, then it’s ours.

 

 

 

[Xann]

It's not mandatory to be an utter mug on election days.

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, Xann said:

It's not mandatory to be an utter mug on election days.

It kind of is. You can either vote for the Tory and therefore be a mug, or vote for Labour, who are apparently just as bad, and thus be a mug, or you can vote for a tiny yellow or Green or Reform party, and see one of the big blue or red parties get in, like the mug that (non-specific) you are, or you can stay at home and see exactly the same thing happen, mug muggety mug mugs.

[Xann]

Loving it down the garden path.

Corbyn vs Farage is going to be an interesting watch.

We're on for every course of dogshit on a plate being eagerly gobbled down.

[blandy]

The government is changing the regulators remits e.g. Ofwat, so that they have to give appropriate consideration to the potential impact of their activities and decisions on economic growth, for the wider UK economy, alongside or as part of their consideration of their other statutory duties.  They’re doing it without a commons vote, via a statutory instrument.  Looks like they blinked first over Thames water. Colour me shocked.

[OutByEaster?]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

The government is changing the regulators remits e.g. Ofwat, so that they have to give appropriate consideration to the potential impact of their activities and decisions on economic growth, for the wider UK economy, alongside or as part of their consideration of their other statutory duties.

So they have to put profit over other considerations; like the public good, maintaining supply, the environment and the standard of water?

 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

So they have to put profit over other considerations; like the public good, maintaining supply, the environment and the standard of water?

My dear chap, no no no. This conservative government is steadfast in ensuring the highest standards, world leading standards, apply to the delivery and cleanliness of water and the environment to the British people.

its just that we really don’t want a big stink over pollution and profiteering and Thames water going bust, in the run up to an election, so we’ve decided to give Ofwat some wriggle room and a nod and a wink, so they can take the flak instead of us, for easing the way to allow a solution to be reached for a viable business plan.