The Government’s refusal to sanction a crony bailout for Thames Water marks a rare moment of clarity in an age of intellectual and moral decay. For years, we have watched private utilities extract vast profits while infrastructure crumbled. This is not merely a financial crisis.
It is a judgment on an era that mistook shareholder dividends for civic duty. The Victorian engineers who built London’s sewers would be appalled. We now face the choice: continue the charade of privatised monopolies, or accept that some services are too vital for the casino of the market.
Nationalisation is not a panacea. But it is a necessary humiliation for a class that believed its incompetence would always be underwritten by the taxpayer. The fall of Thames Water echoes the collapse of Rome’s grain dole.
Empires die when their elites stop believing in the public good. Let this be a warning to the rest.
