These four items were all headlines in this morning's Guardian newspaper business newsletter:
In turn we get:
- The exploitation of a public necessity - water - for private gain.
- The potential corruption of programmes driven by right-wing ideology.
- The exploitation of war for private gain at cost to people in this country.
- The enforced payment for what should be provided free of charge by the state because of the bankruptcy of Tory policy.
The evidence that the UK is working very well for some at cost to the great majority in this country is plain to see.
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The G’ missed one out.
Uk serfs, peasants and subjects will be glad to know that a “regulated” (feel free to laugh hysterically at this point) monopoly, step forward… National Grid, reported PROFITS of …….£4.6 BILLION.
The chairman of the company would like to thank UK serfs, Ofgem, UK politicians etc for making this possible.
As for those lucky shareholders: they can expect a recommended final dividend of 37.60p to bring full year dividend to 55.44p, up 8.77% and in line with policy (whose policy?)
.
As UK serfs will doubtless (or perhaps not) be aware, NG recently took over that other rapacious organisation “Western Power Distribution” – which runs power networks in South Wales, the Midlands, Devon and Cornwall. What we are thus seeing is the gradual compaction of the vile-tories privatisation of networtks – the end point probably being a couple of network operators, led by Nat Grid ably supported by the network operators wholly-owned subsidiary – Ofgem. (Ofgem has the same relationship with the energy industry that Associated Octel had with the fuel industry – wholly owned).
Meanwhile in Liebore central offices, classes on “how to run a country for beginners” have proven to be a great success.
🙂
The grid profits are sickening
It’s still the same with the water supply.
OFWAT introduced NAVs – New Appointment Variations – in 1991 to ‘break up monopoly providers’ of fresh water – yet more middle men to get a natural resource to your home.
As a housing developer or as a customer you are faced with more complexity as to who owns what with your connection which has caused us nightmares with certification – who certifies what to what standard? The quickest thing you can find out about a NAV is who their CFO is!
The default position to our utilities and much else is to marketize it at all costs. It’s pure dogma in action and a money making machine and I’m sure as hell certain that more NAVs have popped up recently because of a couldn’t care less Government.
FUBAR – that’s what it is.
Agreed.
With respect to SSE – one can do a compare and contrast with Orsted (50.1% owned by the…….Danish state). Both companies are significant off-shore wind players in the UK, Orsted has some fossil (bio-mass) stations (Denmark) but no network to speak of.
SSE profits of £2.18bn, Orsted EBITDA of circa Euro4.3bn (for 2022). Little of the SSE profits goes to the UK state, 50% of the Orsted profits go to ………the Danish state. Doubtless, UK serfs will be delighted to know that they are funding (via their electricity bills) the Danish state thus ensuring that Danes maintain their high quality lifestyles. Yes, it all makes sense in the disunited-vile-tory-inger-land where the religion is: competition, markets, and all that good stuff.
Oh & as for SSE making more network investments, you – UK serfs – will pay for that (what? – you thought this came with no cost?) – because any & all network investments that SSE makes earn a return – i.e. SSE get a yearly return (via network charges paid by UK serfs) that is a function of the value of their asset base. The real world equivalent is you as a shopkeeper in Palermo – once a week (or month) a nice man knocks on your door and you give him money – insurance against fires etc. This is a function of your tunrover. He works for the mafia. The Uk has its own mafiosi – they are called elec (& gas) network operators, or water companies or rail companies or… the list is long. & don’t forget the next gov’, Liebore, will do exactly……………………….nothing, nada, zero to change the situation. Uk subjects, not just serfs, but mugs as well.
If it’s an indicator of confidence (or lack of) in the UK I note that Gilt yields are at the level they reached after the disastrous Truss/Kwartang government.
And yet the BOE continues to actively sell down it’s QE bonds whilst other countries allow them to run off naturally.
What does Baily care? Life’s great for me. £600k per annum and 4% risk free on my savings. Meanwhile a million fixed rate mortgages are due to expire this year.
Something is very wrong here.
You are right
I will see what happens today and then blog
From today’s Torygraph …
‘Liz Truss was right and the experts were wrong
Borrowing costs are surging again, even though the so-called grown-ups are in charge’
It’s a pretty desperate situation when folk are accusing you of being dumber than Liz Truss.
In the Highlands we are paying more for our electricity (which is generated locally) than users in London to who SSE exports to from the same source (50p+ to about 30p+). Additionally SSE are aggressively pushing through the building of new pylons across a large part of the Highlands in order to more easily export to England. They have been very clear in pointing out that the direct customers (in Scotland) will be paying for these pylons. I have no problem with wind farms, I accept the need for clean electricity. What I do object to is having to put up with the farms and higher costs. From a number of local meetings about the pylons it is clear that local government and to some extent the Scottish parliament have very little say with the building of pylons and the compulsory nature of the work around public and private land.
Both the Blair and Cameron governments continued and deepened the process begun by Thatcher whereby local government was drastically reduced in it’s scope and powers and ability to act in the interests its local communities, and developers and the like such as SSE given greater freedom to pursue their profits.