Illustration by John Sadler www.johnsadlerillustration.com

• THAMES Water (and all the water companies) have been taking our money for years, using the guaranteed income stream from our bills as collateral to borrow billions of pounds from which they paid dividends, bonuses and vast executive salaries… and now are defaulting on the loans.

They have spent almost no money on processing sewage, maintaining infrastructure, or even servicing the debt.

They are now attempting to extort even more money through higher bills and or government bailouts so that they can continue lining their pockets at our expense, while simultaneously flooding the country with raw sewage (so lots of fun with E. coli and typhoid to look forward to).

There is an even worse scandal brewing here than the Post Office / Fujitsu scandal and the companies should be left to go bankrupt and renationalised with zero compensation.

MARTIN KENNEDY, W1