@KayBurley As Tony Blair said he was never asked so that wasn’t hard. He did however, at first, decline our strongest ally from using our bases which has done a lot of damage to the relationship for no benefit.
@andrew_lilico What he says is nothing like what Truss would propose. It is just a common sense intervention which the Labour Party will no doubt ignore in taking us back to the 70’s.
@wesstreeting Yes with socialist drivel. He starts by saying let’s not take the country back to the 70’s but the policies he hints at will do exactly that.
@DPJHodges Of course they don’t agree, if they did there would be no need for the intervention. It is just good old common sense that is increasingly rare in politics these days.
@DPJHodges It’s an excellent essay intended to kickstart a grown up debate about what the country needs right now in terms of policy and leadership. His motivation for doing so, whatever they might be, don’t detract from that.
@ret_ward This is just extraordinary. We have the highest energy prices in the G7, crippling our industry and at huge cost to the consumer, and the argument he comes up with is setting example to others who are just laughing at us.
@afneil The water industry was an easy target for a leveraged buyout. Stable cash flows, monopoly position etc. It either should not have been allowed (perhaps by restricting the leverage) or dividends linked in some way to capital expenditure. Failure of regulation.
@ChrisMid What an excellent thread. Thank you Chris. The BBC should really be privatised then they can be as biased as they like. The fact they do this while taking license fee money is a scandal.
@DanielPriestley Not really stolen but certainly a huge failure of regulation. These companies are monopolies and have very stable cash flows so are perfect for buyers wanting to dramatically increase their debt, reduce capital expenditures and extract huge dividends. Ofwat should have stopped it
@trussliz The problem was poor execution not poor policies. The problem is that the result of the poor execution was a huge setback to the policies and therefore contributed to the mess the country is in now.
@BGatesIsaPyscho This really is extraordinary. Is he gaslighting or is it that he just doesn’t understand such a simple point? Which would be even more worrying.