Utilities: Water Supplier and Liverpool

utilities: Shares in United Utilities, water supplier in Liverpool, where Fairbairn spoke, slipped 2%. Fans of nationalisation will dismiss Fairbairn's plea for Labour to work with business, and not against it as laughably limp, according to The Guardian. A last-ditch attempt to protect the interests of a narrow group of wealthy shareholders, said Peter Dowd, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, giving fair warning that a meeting of minds is not on the cards. Amid the Brexit pantomime, investors were studying the odds on an imminent general election and the chances of a Labour administration enacting its plans to take the energy networks, water companies, Royal Mail and the rail operators into national ownership. Let's swerve around that ideological chasm and instead ask the financial questions. On water, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said parliament will decide the level of compensation and has cited the nationalisation of Northern Rock as a precedent, an argument that heroically ignores the fact the bank was bust whereas the water companies are not. How much would Labour pay for the assets How would it deal with the inevitable legal challenges if the price is less than market value Answers so far have been vague. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.