Both camps wanted investors to pay. Members backed special administration for Thames Water overwhelmingly, but the most-respected No case, “Put the zombie down”, was no defence of the company: it asked that no more rescue packages be fed to it, and that owners learn they cannot run utilities into failure with the taxpayer as backstop.
The most-respected Yes case turned cost around. What is truly “too expensive for taxpayers”, it said, is a privatised monopoly running up £20bn of debt while paying out dividends. Special administration, it argued, “rightly wipes out the reckless private investors”. A second ★ Yes voice stuck to the debt itself, saying it needed looking at, especially dividends and bonuses, while not wanting to nationalise every loss-making business. Harsher Yes voices wanted executives fired and, in one case, jailed.
The No side split in two. One camp worried about the bill: “We cannot nationalise these assets without paying the bond holders”, said one, adding that there is no money. Another warned that “It's easy to say yes on paper” without weighing cost, though it still wanted Macquarie held responsible. The other camp, with lines like “Make the share holders pay”, was closer to Yes in spirit than in vote, and one No voter even favoured taking all water companies into state control without compensating shareholders.
So the dispute was less about whether owners had failed than about who carries the risk of fixing it. Yes voters said administration protects the public interest; No voters feared it shifts £20bn of private debt onto taxpayers, and neither fully settled the other's point about who ends up paying.
The argument both sides shared fits in one demand: make the shareholders pay.
54 Opinions
Put the zombie down. Stop feeding it brains via gov rescue packages and let the vultures feast. The expectation needs to be set that you can not run utilities into failure with the certainty in mind that the tax payer will pay your next compensation package.
£20,000,000,000 in debt. Let's give that figure the respect it deserves. If you spent a quid every single second, it would take you 633 years, 278 days, 4 hours, and 16 minutes to spend £20 billion. Whilst I'm not for nationalising every loss making business, and I'm not in that water area, this needs looking at. Especially the money that's been taken out of the company in dividends and wage bonuses.
What is truly 'too expensive for taxpayers' is allowing a privatized monopoly to rack up £20bn in debt while paying out billions in dividends, leaving the public to clean up their mess. Special administration isn't political posturing; it protects the public interest, ensures the taps keep running, and rightly wipes out the reckless private investors who caused this crisis.
We cannot nationalise these assets without paying the bond holders. We cannot do that because there is no money. - The government are worse managers than private sector. The political failiure is the regulator oversight.
Make owners sort it out. Im sure government could freeze personal bank accounts of owners until sorted. ! Taxpayers should not government debt run up by them
Make the share holders pay
How utterly inept can a company be to find themselves 20 billion in debt? Not only should it be nationalised, every senior executive involved should be fired immediately.
It's easy to say yes on paper without looking at potential cost. As long as the private market keeps this going there is no need to intervene. We should ,however, look at ways to hold Macquarie and others responsible and more importantly learn and legislate to avoid future situations like this. Nationalisation has rarely delivered better service at a lower cost. Losses are then just hidden in the budget. Let's not fall for this imaginary easy way out.
It has got out of hand: the special administration should consist of renationalisation in just this case and at least 10 years gaol for all senior managers plus expropriation of all their property. This is not to say that utilities should be nationalised, but rather to follow Voltaire's joke in Candide: "Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres" Edited
Privatise all public utilities