Selling Thames Water to private equity again is a sick joke

Greedy financiers can't be trusted with something so important to Londoners

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It's a story of betrayal, of backstabbing and greed, of Wall Street excess and of junk bonds, of corporate decimation and countless lives shattered by sackings, of asset stripping and exploitation and it epitomises the very worst of global corporate finance. It is also a story coming to a water tap near you very soon.

That epic 1989 book Barbarians at the Gate is not a tale of fantasy, it is in reality a first-hand account of the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco and its subsequent break up - it is also the tail of the rise of American investment firm KKR which has just been announced as the preferred bidder for Thames Water.

Unfathomably, it would appear that even after 35 years of privatisation, a failed experiment in corporate greed, the Government and our water industry regulator Ofwat have learned nothing, and are still prepared to allow the vultures to pick over the bones of our water bills.

It seems remarkable - no, in fact it's insulting to bill payers' intelligence, that in a week when our average water bills have gone up 26 per cent, with more to come - that we are still being told the way to solve a problem with a company like Thames Water, currently £19 billion in debt, is to turn it into a company that is £22 billion in debt.

Surprising, given that it is a monopoly supplying drinking water to 15 million captive customers in the Greater London and Thames Valley area. And exactly how woefully incompetent do you need to be? You see Thames Water's troubles have deep roots and its downfall has been slow and painful.