We live in a deeply polarised, politicised world, where anything from changing rooms to the Motability scheme can be subject to the most extreme invective and propagandised argument. One exception to this is the state of the water industry. This is something that can unite the nation.
We can all now agree – Tim Farron, Nigel Farage, Surfers Against Sewage – that the model introduced when the sector was privatised in 1989 has failed, and that it requires some radical restructuring. Something better needs to be put in place, and it should not make matters even worse by costing the taxpayer billions to bail out the shareholders and bondholders invested in companies such as Thames Water, which has all but gone bust.
