HindeSight Investment #111 May 2024 - Newsletter - READ HERE
HINDESIGHT INVESTMENT EDUCATION NEWSLETTER
CONTENTS
OVERVIEW
INVESTMENT INSIGHTS
PORTFOLIO UPDATE
HINDESIGHT DIVIDEND UK PORTFOLIO
OVERVIEW
The sweltering summer of 1858 saw the heatwave bring tears to the eyes of most Londoners as the foul smell from the river Thames reached new depths. It soon became reported as “The Great Stink” and accounts of the day tell of Parliament considering moving to Oxford, while lining the curtains of The House of Commons with lime chloride to try to disguise the odour. The previous two decades since the outbreaks of Cholera, that saw 40,000 deaths in the capital alone, had brought in some preventative changes to the London sewer and cesspit system, but with a constantly growing population, the result had been even more raw sewerage flowing into the river Thames.
Despite the work of John Snow, a London-based physician and his 1849 paper-On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, and the famous removal of the Broad Street pump handle, stopping the supply of contaminated water, there was still a debate whether Cholera and other diseases were air-borne, (Miasma theory) or water-borne. But, the great engineering project, commissioned by the Metropolitan Board of Works, led by Joseph Balzagette that saw the new London sewage system take piped waste along the side of the Thames eastwards, to be released closer to the open sea put an end to that debate as there were no further major Cholera outbreaks in the centre of London after that. (The 1866 outbreak in East London was prior to the completion of the eastern section). The creation of the new pipework saw the river Thames being substantially narrowed with three “embankments”, Victoria and Chelsea on the north and Albert on the south side, which ran over the new pipework system. Not just a new sewage system, but also helping ease traffic congestion for considerable time after. Well, until Sadiq Khan’s cycle lanes put paid to that! It was a huge and expensive engineering feat, that saw the borrowed money repaid over many years by a 3p yearly charge to all London households.
Almost two hundred years later, with the population of the UK some threefold larger, we are still far too reliant on and thankful of the water and sewage pipework systems that our illustrious Victorian predecessors built. But, it’s no surprise that they are struggling to cope, not just with bigger population, but climate change bringing increased rainfall and flooding, although the Thames Tideway Sewer system due for completion in 2025 at the cost of £5bn must certainly be seen as a great and much needed achievement.
This month’s bad water story comes from Devon where 16,000 households and businesses were told by South West Water, (SWW) to boil their tap water before drinking, amid 46 confirmed cases of cryptosporidium infection, and more than 100 with reported symptoms. Typically, any parasite infection in water is as a result of untreated sewage or escaped sewage within the reservoir and pipe system, no different to 1860, despite varying excuses.
As long ago as 1884, the great British statesman, Joseph Chamberlain, (father of future WWII Prime minister, Neville Chamberlain) astutely argued that “It is difficult, if not impossible to combine the citizens’ rights and interests and private enterprise’s interests, because the private enterprise aims at its natural and justified objective, the biggest possible profit” with reference to the potential nationalisation of the water supply. Presumably, he is turning in his grave at the current farce that is going on with UK water industry. Despite those wise words, the UK water industry spent only a few years from the 1973 nationalisation to the 1989 privatisation under Margaret Thatcher’s government, in state hands.
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