“Be careful what you wish for…. You might get it!” is a well known variation on an old Yiddish curse. It is likely one that The Right Honourable, Sir Keir Starmer, PC, KCB, KC the Member for Holborn and St Pancras will be pondering frequently as the fates appear to be pushing him towards being the next occupant of #10 Downing Street – unless of course the Tories replace the Unfortunate Sunak with another of their number!
You see, Sir Keir knows he is not going to inherit one poisoned chalice but several! One of those containing a particularly nasty poison will be the Thames Water chalice!
Recently the Guardian was one of several news mediums that reported upon the company’s travails: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/28/fresh-crisis-for-thames-water-as-investors-pull-plug-on-500m-of-funding
Sir Keir’s woes are of course being added to, notably by another knight, The Right Honourable Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Member for North East Somerset, who has repeatedly (on his GB News slot) that the normal commercial process should be allowed to take it’s course and that Thames water should not be prevented from becoming insolvent and being wound up by it’s many creditors! This will of course leave the company’s shareholders with shares worth no more than a Tory election leaflet!
Now, one would imagine with a High Tory like Sir Jacob urging such a course Sir Keir and his colleagues would accept such advice as enthusiastically as offering a piece of prime beefsteak to a hungry dog!
But of course we have to deal with Real Politic!
The problem for Sir Keir will be that Sir Jacob’s solution will be the popular solution (popular that is amongst the vast bulk of the British public and MPs). It will not be popular with the shareholders however! These shareholders include sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and institutional investors. Some are US based. This means that were the shares made worthless a number of foreign governments – particularly the USA – would be very angry indeed!
This means the new Labour government will have to bail out the shareholders with taxpayers money to ensure that they do not loose any money! This will be about as popular with the British electorate as the leader of Hamas turning up at a Likud party meeting!
At the moment, Tory ministers are trying to move Heaven and Earth to ensure that Thames Water remains solvent whilst they are the government! They are determined to hand this particular problem to Labour!