Margaret Thatcher did Britain great harm through privatizing many public services, including water supply. Since then, the "investors" in water supply have extracted profits without actually investing in the upkeep of the facilities.

Now they have run it into the ground and want to raise rates, supposedly to pay for the belated investment that they skimped on before. But it appears the government has decided to make them go bankrupt instead.

That could create a great opportunity to renationalize those facilities, but I can't believe Tories would want to do that.