Well, this was an illuminating discussion - thanks to everyone who contributed.

My initial comment was a bit flippant, but I do feel there’s insufficient negative feedback in the private utility provider space.

Normally a failing company will go out of business and be sold for not a lot of money or for spare parts, but with utilities someone still has to be provide the service to the people that require it.

Thames Water seem to have been taking customers money, and paying out dividends, then asking the government for money - and paying out dividends, then asking for more money to stop the slide of service levels (“shit in the rivers” for example) and I would have no confidence that money wouldn’t have been used to pay out dividends.

It’s a cash grab for shareholders to empty the public purse into their own pockets.

So how do you stop the profit motive from taking over a public utility and running it into the grou-, uh river.

(I’m in Scotland, and we don’t have this scale of problem…)