There has been a mains water leak in our street for about the last six weeks, with enough pressure from below ground to have damaged the road surface. The first 'repair' made no difference and since then several of my neighbours have been trying to persuade notorious (and close-to-bankruptcy) Thames Water to turn up again and mend it properly. Workers have come from time to time but have not stayed for various reasons, at least twice because cars were parked where they needed to dig (they had not put out notices asking people not park in a certain place at a certain time) and once 'because it was raining'. Today they had promised yet again to come so neighbours were out in force yesterday and this morning to make sure no cars were parked in the way. Thames Water have dug a hole and say they have fixed the leak, but the hole-fillers are different people and won't be here till Friday. At least they have put a temporary fence around it so it's harder for people to fall in.

Our public services and infrastructure were privatised a generation ago because the private sector was allegedly more efficient. Since then, government subsidies have highly efficiently been paid out to shareholders and Thames Water is now £19bn in debt.