Public ownership of water and utilities!

When the Thatcher Tory government privatised water in 1989, it cancelled all the new water companies’ debts, as a gift to the private owners.

The private owners then sucked out billions in dividends, covered by loading the company with more and more debt.

Dividends

Over 35 years, £72 billion has been taken out in dividends, and £60 billion debt built up. The debt has become harder to sustain in recent years because of higher interest rates, and shortage of physical investment has increased leaks due to ill-maintained pipes and dumping of raw sewage into rivers.

Thames Water, now facing collapse and renationalisation, is only the worst example of many.

All that comes from a basic public health function being run not as a public service, but as a private-profit operation.

Take the utilities into public ownership, and run them under democratic and workers’ control!