Evil Diaries: Water Mess And Public Fantasy

I see that Starmer has declared he’ll go for the directors of water companies to pay for the current mess. He might access £50m at most by way of a claim: but what would be the claim?

This is interesting since Starmer has only been in Downing Street for a week: and water is only one of five serious problems he has publicly on his desk. I say five but just tickle the intray filing clerk and I would not be surprised to learn that it is at least fifteen serious problems. Starmer will be blaming Sunak but I blame a host of others – going right back to Brown on the run up to 2010. And certainly not Sunak.

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Ofwat has known about the desperate state of the water companies’ balance sheets since Ofwat determine the selling price climate/regime imposed by the companies. It is hard to see that the directors are to blame. Put another way, Starmer is just flannelling.

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The chaps behind Melrose have just floated Rosebank (ROSE). At 740p it is capitalised at well over twice the issue price and all that came at that issue price was cash put up by the directors and, of course, the public. We have had all this nonsense before – only in its latest presentation (before ROSE) it was in America. UK investors will get their fingers and more burnt.