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How can England possibly be running out of water?

theguardian.com

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Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#421

Post by Supernaut »

bilekas wrote: post #138

I remember they tried to privatize water in Ireland a good few years ago and there was so much backlash that it had to be binned. Basically everyone was destroying the meters that were being installed. Water is a human right, not a commodity.

> I remember they tried to privatize water in Ireland a good few years ago

That is not what happened. The government simply introduced plans to charge for water usage. As you say, there was a backlash, albeit only from certain sectors of society. While it did cause the authorities to shelve the charges, it's not correct to say that "everyone" was destroying the new meters; as I recall, there was very little vandalism.

The result of this mob rule is that, like Britain, we have been left with an underfunded, ageing, leaky water network that is essentially incapable of supporting further expansion.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#422

Post by Retric »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #410
swiftcoder wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My provider is Thames Water. They are losing money. Are they losing money because costs exceed revenue, or are they losing money because they are servicing massive loan interest on money they already distributed to shareholders?

Page 10 of their 24/25 annual report says they only pay 8% toward interest payments, the largest outgoing is infrastructure, then opex. https://www.thameswater.co.uk/media-library/l13deqmw/thames-...

That doesn’t answer the question.

However, any money paid to shareholders while accumulating debt, including deferred maintenance, etc was financial smoke and mirrors not actual profit.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#423

Post by qcnguy »

danans wrote: post #403
qcnguy wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Trump is anyone's idea of a textbook conservative, especially not economically. He's a former democrat with populist instincts. Such politicians are often popular. It's frequently said in the UK that the median British voter is socially conservative and economically liberal. It's true that the US subsidizes its road network. The effect is somewhat different though. If TfL doesn't get enough money in due…

> I don't think Trump is anyone's idea of a textbook conservative, especially not economically I'm just going off what you said above: > The US is a very right wing country. > It's politicians are better able to avoid populist price controls. I don't think he is a traditional conservative either, but rather a right-wing nationalist ethno-socialist. However, the fact is that he has the near unanimous support of most "…

Trump has certainly dragged his party towards the left economically speaking. With lots of squealing and resistance, but they went there in the end because it's popular with voters. They haven't managed to win people over on fiscal conservatism despite trying.

But US politics plays out in many ways, including at the local level. For water supply who the POTUS is doesn't matter that much, it's not handled at the federal level. American political outcomes vs the rest of world are the result of long term social trends beyond any one man.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#424

Post by declan_roberts »

peterfirefly wrote: post #417
declan_roberts wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Cattle eat grass. Grass is extraordinarily efficient at using water. It's what would normally be growing there without humans! 70% of the UK is farmland and I'm willing to bet much of that is non-irrigated pasture.

> It's what would normally be growing there without humans! A lot of it (most of it, likely) would be forest.

No it would not unless you also removed all grazing animals.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#425

Post by momiforgot »

England’s water crisis: decades of underinvestment, privatised firms extracting rents, and a state too broke to fix pipes. Fortunately, the establishment has a brilliant plan: escalate with Russia, trigger a limited nuclear exchange, and get a neat lattice of new reservoirs in the form of fresh craters - conveniently clustered around the Home Counties. As an act of war, NIMBY rules won’t apply.

So next time you think war spending is fiscally insane, remember: it’s not waste, it’s water strategy. World-class ingenuity from the people who once ran an empire.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#426

Post by qcnguy »

midnightclubbed wrote: post #400
qcnguy wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty much no one other than extreme rightists would describe the Conservatives as a centre-left party If an election were called tomorrow your next government would be Reform with a massive majority of 339 seats. It is the most popular party in the country by far. It would collect 33% of the vote vs Labour's 18% and the Conservatives would get only 17%, translating to their near-total destruction (only 35 seats).…

> modern left wing goals like unlimited mass immigration. Ahh and there we are. It's the immigrant's fault. Once all those illegals are out the of the country we'll be great again - the world will once more bend to Queen Victoria's will and Bobby Charleston will again lift the world cup for England, it's rightful owners (hard /s btw). No major party on either side of the Atlantic are pro-illegal immigration or advoca…

I didn't pass any judgement on that policy, nor blame immigrants for anything. I only observed that it's a deeply unpopular policy across the political spectrum yet they won't abandon it because it's seen as non-negotiable by a small class of very left wing people.

Labour following their desires instead of trying to boost their polling numbers isn't "centrism" by any definition.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#427

Post by theSherwood »

I'm really skeptical of the idea that the blame for the lack of water infrastructure ought to be put at the feet of the water companies. The UK's planning system has strangled just about every infrastructure project in every domain. There is a general trend of local residents preventing infrastructure being built in the area, whether it be for water, energy, rail, or roads.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#428

Post by wredcoll »

danans wrote: post #403
qcnguy wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Trump is anyone's idea of a textbook conservative, especially not economically. He's a former democrat with populist instincts. Such politicians are often popular. It's frequently said in the UK that the median British voter is socially conservative and economically liberal. It's true that the US subsidizes its road network. The effect is somewhat different though. If TfL doesn't get enough money in due…

> I don't think Trump is anyone's idea of a textbook conservative, especially not economically I'm just going off what you said above: > The US is a very right wing country. > It's politicians are better able to avoid populist price controls. I don't think he is a traditional conservative either, but rather a right-wing nationalist ethno-socialist. However, the fact is that he has the near unanimous support of most "…

I'm just piling on but:

> a textbook conservative, especially not economically

Wtf is a text book conservative supposed to be, exactly? And have we ever had one?

All the republicans in my life have raised the national debt and spent their time passing laws about culture war issues.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#429

Post by Aushin »

jdietrich wrote: post #419
scythe wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is exactly what would have also happened if the water companies were not privatized The post office in the United States is not privatized and yet has been able to set prices in a way that sustains the business for centuries. You can't simply assume that all public entities will ignore fiscal reality. In fact you may run into the opposite problem: when a utility is public, their debts appear on the government b…

The US Postal Service has been running at a loss since 2007. It lost $9.5bn last year, despite a colossal bailout in 2022 that was supposed to return it to profitability. Most of these losses can be attributed to pension and healthcare costs. The USPS is pretty much the worst example of a sustainable nationalised business that you could possibly choose.

Only because of legislative sabotage in 2006 by right wing ideologues determined to prove that public services "can't work"

https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#430

Post by nikanj »

Same reason as with the housing stock: In a vetocracy, infrastructure does not get built to keep up with a growing population. Not building a single new reservoir for 30 years is bonkers, when the population has grown about 20% and migrated from the rural areas to the cities
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