Thanks to Dottie’s Phone for alerting me to this.

In May 2024, the Guardian told us:

Thames Water has sent samples of water for lab testing after dozens of people reported becoming unwell with stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea in south-east London. 

Today, they have:

Thames Water has been urged to show greater transparency over its finances and accused of “financial chicanery” after it emerged its board had approved a £150m dividend hours before its shareholders U-turned on providing emergency funding. The Guardian revealed last week that the board of the struggling water supplier agreed to the payout at a meeting on 27 March.

The following day, the debt-laden company said its investors were no longer willing to provide £500m of funding they had previously pledged, raising the prospect that the company may be temporarily nationalised. Thames Water made no mention of the dividend payment at that point. The water industry regulator, Ofwat, planned to investigate the circumstances around the dividend paid by Thames, sources said. The company was already under investigation over its decision to pay a separate £37.5m dividend at the time the £150m dividend was paid.

Sounds like they need that Labour change but in the FT last week:

Labour does not want Thames Water to fall into public ownership, shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has said, as the UK’s biggest water supplier teeters on the brink of collapse. Reynolds, who would play a leading role in Labour’s relations with business if the party won the July 4 UK general election, said he “wouldn’t want to see a nationalisation” of Thames Water. “I think there should be a solution that involves [something] short of that,” he said at an event in the City of London, without specifying the approach he would take.

To be expected of course now that the Labour Party has gone full Tory?

But wait, in 1858, that all-too-Tory, Disraeli government sorted out an even worse Thames. See this from the New York Post in 2017:

In the 19th century, Britain’s military and imperial might was so great that the country lorded over almost one-quarter of the world’s population.

But on June 30, 1858, the UK government nearly surrendered to an even more powerful foe — the smell of human excrement.

By that summer, the River Thames had become such a large repository of human waste that the stench, exacerbated by a sweltering heat wave, drove all of London to its knees. 

More at: https://nypost.com/2017/08/05/a-river-full-of-poop-made-london-great-again/