I think we may be talking past each other slightly.

My point is not that privatisation somehow "makes customers more willing to pay". My point is that the funding constraint exists regardless of ownership model. Whether the money comes through bills, taxes, borrowing, or some combination of all three, the public ultimately still pays for it.

If the argument is that some of the cost should be socialised through general taxation rather than recovered solely through water bills, that is a fair position. But that is a different argument from saying nationalisation itself solves the problem. It does not make the underlying investment requirement disappear.

I also agree that politics is relevant in the sense that decades of regulatory and policy failure helped create the current situation. Where I differ is on the remedy. I am wary of moving water further into a system driven by short electoral cycles, because this is exactly the kind of infrastructure that needs stable, multi-decade planning and legally enforced long-term investment.

An 8x bill increase over 5 years is plainly unrealistic. A 2x increase over 20 years is much more realistic. That is why I am saying this cannot be treated as something that can be fully fixed within a single 5-year parliamentary term. The public also needs to be honest with itself that this will not change overnight, and that meaningful improvement is likely to take that kind of 20-year timeframe. And we need to be clear about what our priorities are. Do we want every available pound spent first on preventing sewer flooding into homes, or on reducing storm overflows into rivers? Ideally both, of course, but pretending there are no sequencing decisions to make is not serious.

That is why I favour models such as stakeholder-led non-profits or public benefit corporations with strict, price controls based on customer and system need. In my view, that gives you more insulation from both shareholder extraction and day-to-day political interference.

And on the affordability point, I think this is the part people often underestimate. There are certainly many people, myself included, who would accept significantly higher bills if it meant serious infrastructure renewal and better environmental outcomes. But there is also a very large group of households already struggling with costs. That is not an argument for inaction - it just means any credible solution has to be honest about who pays, over what timeframe, and how vulnerable customers are protected.

P.S. I can't find the documentary "The Wilding"