A Political Rant this time (well, aren't they all?) - A little rant on Utility Companies, unions, and asset stripping...

OK, this may not be good news for large house owners, but for the small bloke like me it's a helping hand...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7227793.stm

It seems the new round of water bills are gonna be based on home size (i.e., how many bedrooms you have, not what zone your home falls into.

About bleedin' time, Thames Water!

Congratulations for finally seeing a little common sense!

Now, if the electricity companies can do something similar, maybe, just maybe, London will start to be a little more affordable for lower paid workers!

Bleedin' eck. (sits down on soap box) I'm doin' a Dennis Leary (remember "No Cure For Cancer"?) What the heck next? A red armband with a hammer and sickle?! No bleedin' chance!

Still, it's a valid point regarding Utility Companies and their bills.

British Gas (or whatever you wanna call them, BG, or Bleedin' Greedy, maybe?) have recently upped their rates. LEB/SEBoard et all, even British Telecom (despite the fancy packaging) are all more expensive one way or another.

What is it about these companies with Captive markets? Even switching to another firm for the same product usually involved a certain level of grief in switching, then after a while, the honeymoon dies off, and they up their bills (same old same old, in other words). What, they think we're fik or sommat? (note spelling!)

I gotta say it, I'm getting the right old heave ho with the lot of them.

Who else thinks that Maggie, with the benefit of hindsight, actually had it wrong when she sold off the PUBLIC Utility Companies?

Now, I'm a Union man. I'm proud of that. I've been in two others before the T&GWU (now a division of Unite), so no surprises there. Not only, by the way, do they stand up for the individual as a collective group, they also offer all manner of benefits to their members, and that's a good thing! However, and going back to Maggie...

WITH the benefit of hindsight, and knowing now how much she despised the Union movement, how she wanted (and succeeded, unfortunately) in breaking the Union Movement to a large degree, how much do you think the selling off of the Public Utilities was to do with Union breaking as opposed to asset striping (as its' now called)?

The point is, though, these companies have shareholders they have to pay off - I mean give dividends to - instead of ploughing all the profits back into either reducing end-user costs, or making the business better, if not both.

Once again, Capitalism entered what should have remained a Public Service.

We've seen it now with the Utilities, the Railways, Buses, and soon, I suspect, the NHS.

What is it with these recent governments? have they no bloody idea how difficult it is to make a living these days?

Or are they content with sitting in their ivory towers (well, Parliament, anyhow), and remaining one step removed from reality as they pass more useless laws (where existing laws would be perfectly good enough if they were upheld properly)?

You got me, cause I haven't got a clue.

Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please.