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Post by jib on Aug 29, 2022 14:17:11 GMT
Colin: 'Or those "exaggerated" profit and excessive dividends can be regulated away or taxed ."Yes, that's the current excess-profit control regime - Ofwat etc. Polling doesn't seem to suggest the public are very convinced of its effectiveness. English water companies have handed more than £2bn a year on average to shareholders since they were privatised three decades ago, according to analysis for the Guardian.
The payouts in dividends to shareholders of parent companies between 1991 and 2019 amount to £57bn www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholdersIn which case Regulation is failing and can be altered. In the case of water it clearly is failing given the leakage and sewage discharges. They both need large investment. As an aside I was reading that our sewer systems still follow , or are the legacy of, Bazalgette-who decided to let storm water enter the then new sewage system he built. Today that results in the mad business of venting excess liquid sewage onto our beaches when it rains heavily , with rain water desperately needed where it fell. There is a great description in todays Times of the Llanelli scheme which does away with this stupidity. It cost £115m. I digress. If water qualifies as a Strategic National resource , and I think it is moving rapidly in that direction as we warm the planet-then it meets my criterion for nationalisation-ie a State Service. There are lots of options for tackling the shit on beaches issues, but all very expensive and the cost will have to be carried by the water rates payers. Certainly the costs of dealing with Victorian and Edwardian era houses where the roof water ends up in the sewer is immense, but technically quite simple - why mix clean water with human effluent in the first place!? I read in the paper yesterday that water customers in the South can look forward to drinking treated effluent in the not too distant future, although I understand the flow of the Thames is heavily constituted of effluent (treated) during the summer months in any case.
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alurqa
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Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
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Post by alurqa on Aug 29, 2022 14:19:25 GMT
Just a comment on Lord Sugar. ... He really loathed Corbyn and endorsed the Tories in 2017 and 2019 but essentially on an anti-Corbyn stance. So not a leftie, but certainly not a dyed-in-the-wool Tory either. Yes he made this point very clear earlier:
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Post by robbiealive on Aug 29, 2022 14:26:39 GMT
Without all that, it is possible Tory support for energy nationalisation might have been even greeter than it already has been. Of course, if you consider voters overall, not just Tories, then nationalising utilities etc. has been at the centre for a long time. I posted polling to that effect from the nineties on the old board IIRC. Even back in Maggie’s day, IPSOS MORI polling indicated that her privatisations were her third most-hated policy, after NHS underfunding and Poll Tax. PS I was interested in the data you quoted, partly because it was so compact, concentrated & informative. But I don't think such clear evidence of public angst with nationalised utilities points solely in the direction of a Labour nationalisation policy.
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Post by shevii on Aug 29, 2022 14:28:25 GMT
Stats for Lefties @leftiestats · 23m 🗳️NEW: Labour lead drops from +15 to +8 (+/- since 16-17 Aug)
🔴 Lab 39% (-4) 🔵 Con 31% (+3) 🟠 LD 11% (-) 🟢 Grn 7% (-) 🟡 SNP 5% (-) 🟣 Ref 5% (+1)
Via @yougov , 23-24 Aug
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Post by leftieliberal on Aug 29, 2022 14:30:42 GMT
Whether people understand that nationalisation just means shifting the cost to taxpayers I'm never sure. say first £150 of Summer energy/£200 of winter energy is at a capped rate and anything over that at market rate. Might also give an incentive for people to consider how to reduce their bills to keep them below the threshold. You would need rather more than an extra £50 in winter. If you are dual-fuel, with gas for heating (as I am), the annual costs for electricity and gas before the price rises were about the same. As I have negligible gas use for the six summer months my gas cost for just the six winter months is about the same as for electricity for a whole year. So £150 for summer, would mean £450 for winter. Better to give people cheap gas than force them to choose between heating and eating. Nothing wrong with a capped rate, but you have to be realistic about costs.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Aug 29, 2022 14:39:18 GMT
robbiealive Yes, there is an important distinction between establishing where the centre lies in terms of policy, and how one should respond to that politically. The data illustrates that a lot of voters are keen on nationalising key utilities, and have been for a good while. But for Labour to adopt nationalisation as a policy may require solving some problems because of forces ranged against,* in particular the media, including Guardian and Indy, who are right wing economically (Guardian even pro-austerity) and savaged Corbyn relentlessly, not on his popular policies, but on other stuff, trumped up with the aid of the right within Labour. Who are another issue, also more keen on private sector and may sabotage attempts to move more left. (Some may have benefited from inflated house prices too, something else a left winger might challenge). * though as capital takes the mick more and more, it may come to the point more people may start withholding votes or voting green or summat, as they have come out in favour of nationalisation. p.s. Of course, it’s possible Labour could adopt a useful compromise, of not nationalising the whole thing, but just having a state player in the market. Which might not attract such hostility from vested interests, yet still might be rather useful, pulling prices down and providing better services to compete with. (Not sure how this would work with something like water though). I’m not aware if there is any polling on this partial solution.
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Post by leftieliberal on Aug 29, 2022 14:39:26 GMT
Stats for Lefties @leftiestats · 23m 🗳️NEW: Labour lead drops from +15 to +8 (+/- since 16-17 Aug) 🔴 Lab 39% (-4) 🔵 Con 31% (+3) 🟠 LD 11% (-) 🟢 Grn 7% (-) 🟡 SNP 5% (-) 🟣 Ref 5% (+1) Via @yougov , 23-24 Aug Regression to the mean. As I've said repeatedly on here, if you look at the same pollster over a period it isn't obvious that there is anything other than MoE variation since before Johnson announced his resignation. We may start to get movement in the autumn when Parliament is back and the rise in the price of energy really starts to bite.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 29, 2022 14:39:43 GMT
Mark Personally I thought the dramatic result at the Beverley Rural (East Riding of Yorkshire) council by-election result was more than sufficient to generate a new thread. But I suppose the Tories appointment of their next idiot in chief will do at a push.
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Post by shevii on Aug 29, 2022 14:43:30 GMT
colinI gave some reasons in my post why nationalisation would be a good idea. It cuts out a whole chunk of complications in trying to negotiate a national energy policy with 3rd parties and designing contracts to fit. We see this with EDF where government have to underwrite all sorts of things for new nuclear power stations when perhaps they could have taken the "risk" themselves and avoided years of tendering and uncertainty. It also means government owned energy can push renewables rather than do it at the pace that BP & British Gas want it to go. The same with water- as you point out regulation is failing but decisions could be made today in a nationalised industry. If water companies remain in private hands they will be looking for all sorts of loopholes in the regulation or calculate the sort of risks they can take in missing targets. That's their pattern to date- as much short term profit as they can get without long term investment.
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Post by bardin1 on Aug 29, 2022 15:02:55 GMT
And if we did, how long would it be before the Scottish Government came crawling back, expecting England to save them from their financial failings. You don't need a long memory to remember Fred the Shred and RBS who took over a well-run (and larger) bank in Nat West and turned it into a basket-case, or that Bank of Scotland, which had merged with Halifax, was only saved by being taken over (at Gordon Brown's behest) by Lloyds and brought that bank to its knees. What used to be called Standard Life, merged with Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017, now calls itself abrdn (yes, all lower-case) and is just about to drop out of the FTSE100 following a catastrophic fall in its share price. Scotland used to be a by-word for financial acumen a couple of generations ago, but no longer. Should think it will be about the same amount of time as it takes before Europe comes begging for the UK to come back and subsidise it again from the huge reserves we are building by 'taking back control' from those profligate Euros
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Post by alec on Aug 29, 2022 15:23:09 GMT
@danny - "We really do not know that."
Yes we do. Really. You might not know this, but everyone else does.
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Post by isa on Aug 29, 2022 15:27:40 GMT
Stats for Lefties @leftiestats · 23m 🗳️NEW: Labour lead drops from +15 to +8 (+/- since 16-17 Aug) 🔴 Lab 39% (-4) 🔵 Con 31% (+3) 🟠 LD 11% (-) 🟢 Grn 7% (-) 🟡 SNP 5% (-) 🟣 Ref 5% (+1) Via @yougov , 23-24 Aug Regression to the mean. As I've said repeatedly on here, if you look at the same pollster over a period it isn't obvious that there is anything other than MoE variation since before Johnson announced his resignation. We may start to get movement in the autumn when Parliament is back and the rise in the price of energy really starts to bite. I note the polling was done before the increased energy price cap was announced on Friday, with all the blanket media coverage and commentary that came with it. This is unlikely to have done much to improve further CON VI, I suspect.
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Post by davwel on Aug 29, 2022 15:30:03 GMT
Somerjohn and LL are so much easier to understand than Colin because they use hyphens and dashes normally, or what used to be normal.
It`s hard to fathom why some folk here try to make their messages difficult.
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Post by moby on Aug 29, 2022 15:35:54 GMT
Logically, domestic renewable energy and UK oil and gas production has not experienced excessive input cost inflation, (some cost pressures, but not huge) yet they are selling their output at the massively inflated unit costs set by global commodity markets. I can't see any reason why a sovereign government doesn't legislate to cap wholesale energy prices for UK produced energy to benchmark levels based on 2021 prices plus a modest inflation uplift How would that would work though alec . A company extracts oil from North Sea and will try to sell that for best price, which is the international price. If UK said we will only pay X fraction of international price, company would sell to international market and no oil to UK.Then UK would have to impose some further constraint that compels the oil to be sold to UK. Export limits or something. Company may chose to simply not operate the North Sea extraction if they cannot sell at market rate unless the market rate is low. It would certainly be more complex than the idea initially seems, however attractive the idea may be on the face of it?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2022 15:39:14 GMT
colin I gave some reasons in my post why nationalisation would be a good idea. It cuts out a whole chunk of complications in trying to negotiate a national energy policy with 3rd parties and designing contracts to fit. We see this with EDF where government have to underwrite all sorts of things for new nuclear power stations when perhaps they could have taken the "risk" themselves and avoided years of tendering and uncertainty. It also means government owned energy can push renewables rather than do it at the pace that BP & British Gas want it to go. The same with water- as you point out regulation is failing but decisions could be made today in a nationalised industry. If water companies remain in private hands they will be looking for all sorts of loopholes in the regulation or calculate the sort of risks they can take in missing targets. That's their pattern to date- as much short term profit as they can get without long term investment. As I said in reply to somerjohn , I think water is a clear monopoly candidate and a strategic national resource so the State should own and manage it. It has major environmental impacts too. Not at all sure that energy is in that category . Oil Gas and Electricity are traded globally .There is plenty of competition. They involve massive speculative investment in prime extraction which is not a game for taxpayers imo. I accept that around 40% ish of our energy consumption is imported (ONS) and so subject to international market prices. We should work to reduce that %. But I do not understand why our domestically sourced energy isn't priced without reference to global markets , currently completely disrupted by economic warfare from Putin.
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Post by bardin1 on Aug 29, 2022 15:42:24 GMT
I note that while many of the newspaper websites, including the FT, are reporting this, the BBC doesn't deign it to be of any interest on its Ukraine War page. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-60525350
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Post by alec on Aug 29, 2022 15:46:19 GMT
moby - "A company extracts oil from North Sea and will try to sell that for best price, which is the international price. If UK said we will only pay X fraction of international price, company would sell to international market and no oil to UK.Then UK would have to impose some further constraint that compels the oil to be sold to UK. Export limits or something. Company may chose to simply not operate the North Sea extraction if they cannot sell at market rate unless the market rate is low. It would certainly be more complex than the idea initially seems, however attractive the idea may be on the face of it?" In the US, that well known bastion the free market ethos, they have a law called the Defence Production Act (1950) whereby the president can direct production to meet national needs, regardless of any losses to companies. It was used during covid. These things are only complicated if you place the interests of corporate business above the interests of the nation.
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Post by alec on Aug 29, 2022 15:51:37 GMT
bardin1- "I note that while many of the newspaper websites, including the FT, are reporting this, the BBC doesn't deign it to be of any interest on its Ukraine War page." Like me, they are probably waiting to see if this is another disinformation campaign by Ukraine to unsettle Russian morale. FWIW, it certainly looks like something is happening, but it could be a much more limited attack on a weak point that has gone well, rather than a widespread regional offensive. The chat certainly points to the latter, with claims that Ukraine has broken through the first line of defence, but Ukraine will be talking this up whatever the truth of the matter is.
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Post by bardin1 on Aug 29, 2022 15:55:27 GMT
bardin1 - "I note that while many of the newspaper websites, including the FT, are reporting this, the BBC doesn't deign it to be of any interest on its Ukraine War page." Like me, they are probably waiting to see if this is another disinformation campaign by Ukraine to unsettle Russian morale. FWIW, it certainly looks like something is happening, but it could be a much more limited attack on a weak point that has gone well, rather than a widespread regional offensive. The chat certainly points to the latter, with claims that Ukraine has broken through the first line of defence, but Ukraine will be talking this up whatever the truth of the matter is. I get that, but it is from official Ukraine sources, and has been cited by Reuters as well as the major broadsheets - earlier in the war the Beeb would have been all over it. It appears to me that they are gauging that the public may not be as interested, which I think is wrong and helps play to the narrative that support might slacken
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Post by jib on Aug 29, 2022 15:56:44 GMT
colinOne of the major advantages of having privatised water companies is that massive infrastructure improvements like the Thames Tideway are financed by the private sector, and do not add to the UK public debt. Despite the gloom and doom about water quality, the majority of official bathing waters have never been cleaner, with massive investment programmes and things like improved treatment and ultra violet light to kill nasties. The "Wild swimming" debate is about the shocking condition of rivers, which are unfortunately full of slurry from intensive agriculture and shit from the local sewer network whenever it rains and have never been prioritised for investment for bathing quality like official bathing waters (which are almost exclusively in the marine environment).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2022 16:00:30 GMT
" European natural gas prices plunged the most since April after Germany said its gas stores are filling up faster than planned ahead of winter.
Benchmark Dutch front-month futures fell as much as 16% to 286 euros per megawatt-hour, reversing last week’s jump of almost 40%.
In Germany, gas storage facilities are filling up fast, according to Economy Minister Robert Habeck. The region’s biggest economy is set to meet an October target of 85% full already next month, he said in a statement on Sunday.
Germany to Reach October Gas-Storage Target Already Next Month
To be sure, the supply situation remains very fragile as Europe is grappling with its worst energy crisis in decades. Lower Russian flows, outages in Norway and increasing competition for LNG supplies are all bullish factors that won’t go away anytime soon.
Governments are also putting in place measures to ease the burden, setting aside some 280 billion euros, but that might not be enough. The Czech Republic, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, will call an extraordinary meeting of energy ministers to discuss bloc-wide solutions.
Concerns are also mounting that Russia won’t bring its key Nord Stream pipeline back after a three-day maintenance starting on Aug. 31.
Dutch futures for next month fell 12% to 297 euros per megawatt-hour at 8:20 a.m. in Amsterdam. "
Bloomberg today
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 29, 2022 16:02:23 GMT
Stats for Lefties @leftiestats · 23m 🗳️NEW: Labour lead drops from +15 to +8 (+/- since 16-17 Aug) 🔴 Lab 39% (-4) 🔵 Con 31% (+3) 🟠 LD 11% (-) 🟢 Grn 7% (-) 🟡 SNP 5% (-) 🟣 Ref 5% (+1) Via @yougov , 23-24 Aug But it is YouGov again. Excessive movement one way producing an apparently large move back in the next poll. They do this over and over again.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2022 16:04:33 GMT
colin One of the major advantages of having privatised water companies is that massive infrastructure improvements like the Thames Tideway are financed by the private sector, and do not add to the UK public debt. Despite the gloom and doom about water quality, the majority of official bathing waters have never been cleaner, with massive investment programmes and things like improved treatment and ultra violet light to kill nasties. The "Wild swimming" debate is about the shocking condition of rivers, which are unfortunately full of slurry from intensive agriculture and shit from the local sewer network whenever it rains and have never been prioritised for investment for bathing quality like official bathing waters (which are almost exclusively in the marine environment). Not convinced . I think water is now a strategic resource. So the State should manage it imo. If you lived where I do you wouldn't think that water quality was being over played. I was talking to Lifeguards the other day at Bexhill. A long stretch of the East Sussex coast has been despoiled in recent weeks-turds floating in the sea.
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Post by pete on Aug 29, 2022 16:06:55 GMT
I'm preparing for the winter struggles to come. Just ordered a hot water bottle (and cover). Man you are behind the times. You can buy something which needs no water & you heat up in a microwave in 3 or 4 minutes. There are also electric blankets, which cost little to run? I have never used either and I don't suppose they are as cheap as the usual rubber hotties. Just googled and it says the cost is about a £1 a week to heat your bed. Pretty impressive. Though not sure Id like the idea of leaving on over night. Ordered! reviewers.co.uk/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-an-electric-blanket/#:~:text=Electricity%20consumption%20depends%20on%20the%20area%20you%20reside,a%20targeted%20area%20and%20not%20the%20entire%20household.
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Post by shevii on Aug 29, 2022 16:12:40 GMT
Redfield & Wilton Strategies
@redfieldwilton
·
13m
Labour leads by 9%.
Westminster Voting Intention (28 August):
Labour 42% (–)
Conservative 33% (–)
Liberal Democrat 13% (+1)
Green 4% (-1)
Scottish National Party 3% (-1)
Reform UK 4% (+2)
Other 1% (-1)
Changes +/- 24 August
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pjw1961
Member
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,406
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 29, 2022 16:13:10 GMT
On my oft made point about YouGov's wild swings, these are the Labour leads over the Conservatives in their polls since the start of May:
1,5,8,8,4,7,6,5,3,11,11,7,1,4,9,15,8
Other pollsters show larger or smaller leads based on their methodologies but they tend to be more consistent.
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 29, 2022 16:29:59 GMT
colin
"..turds floating in the sea off the South Coast..."
Are we on about Prince Charles again?
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Post by pete on Aug 29, 2022 16:30:36 GMT
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Post by pete on Aug 29, 2022 16:32:59 GMT
Wonder why he's decided to speak out now?
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Post by jib on Aug 29, 2022 16:43:10 GMT
colin One of the major advantages of having privatised water companies is that massive infrastructure improvements like the Thames Tideway are financed by the private sector, and do not add to the UK public debt. Despite the gloom and doom about water quality, the majority of official bathing waters have never been cleaner, with massive investment programmes and things like improved treatment and ultra violet light to kill nasties. The "Wild swimming" debate is about the shocking condition of rivers, which are unfortunately full of slurry from intensive agriculture and shit from the local sewer network whenever it rains and have never been prioritised for investment for bathing quality like official bathing waters (which are almost exclusively in the marine environment). Not convinced . I think water is now a strategic resource. So the State should manage it imo. If you lived where I do you wouldn't think that water quality was being over played. I was talking to Lifeguards the other day at Bexhill. A long stretch of the East Sussex coast has been despoiled in recent weeks-turds floating in the sea. Sounds grim.
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