Earlier Guido totted up the known ‘Burnham Bill‘ – what a Manchesterist administration would cost the British taxpayer. All likely to kick in come September…
Burnham is a wild advocate of nationalisation. As Guido noted, his pet policy to bring the water industry into ‘public ownership’ would cost at least £100 billion according to the government’s own estimates…
Looking a little closer, the Government’s current policy position is that ‘regulatory capital value’ or RCV – an Ofwat measure – is considered the “closest proxy for the total value of the sector’s debt and equity”. According to Ofwat’s company financial models for 2025-2030, Thames Water’s RCV is estimated to be £30 billion in 2030. The projected time that nationalisation would take place under Burnham…
Thames Water is a regulated business. If it were nationalised, its creditors would need to be compensated. So £30 billion is the cost of purchasing Thames Water, not bailing out all of its creditors, which would be additional…
A good proxy is the Railtrack nationalisation – when the government bought the assets, a load of other associated parties had to be compensated too. Where is the money coming from?
Kemi Badenoch at the 1922-ConHome bash last night:
“I did praise [Burnham] for his stamina, it was amazing. All I had to do was sit back and lie there. I didn’t have to do anything at all…”