Snippets and gleanings - same old same old

Are you dead?
Imagine my surprise on receiving the following text from British Gas the other morning: "Hello, we noticed you haven't topped up your electric meter recently. Is everything OK? If you need help go to..." As it happens, due to the munificence of our caring government, I'd topped up my pre-payment meter with a lump sum for the winter and still had twenty-five quid left to go. Despite this I'm clearly not getting through the lecky fast enough to sustain Centrica's profit margins, which soared tenfold to £751m last year. Nice of them to ask, though.

Water, water everywhere 
Talking of privatised utilities, I've written previously of my [non]engagement with struggling Thames Water. Over a period of months I received first inducements, then pressurisation and finally threats to accept a smart meter in my flat, all of which I ignored. It seems I was not alone - apparently no one responded. The beleaguered company finally gave up and now seems likely to be split up and possibly renationalised as the regulator, Oftwat, investigates a payout of £37.5m last October to investors of parent company, Kemble Water, having not paid a dividend to external shareholders since 2017. Like its customers, Thames Water now knows how it feels to be in deep shit. 

Council of despair
And it's not just the utilities. My local authority, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, is under investigation by the Gove-rnment (again)  - or, rather, its elected mayor and his ruling group, Aspire, are. Lutfur Rahman, previously barred from public office for five years, regained office in 2022, ousting Labour's John Biggs. Biggs had tried to forestall Rahman's return - almost inevitable given the demographics - by holding a public consultation on abolition of the office of Executive Mayor. This failed and the rest is history. Sadly, in Tower Hamlets that has a tendency to repeat itself - like groundhog day.

Uni lateral
As if our embattled university sector didn't have enough on its plate, a broad hint (from Jeremy 'rhymes with' Hunt to an HoL committee) of a general election in October (the first such since 1974) brings the prospect of yet more chaos. On top of having to settle-in a new intake of students, universities will face an additional workload of ensuring that freshers can be put on the electoral register in time, and have the necessary ID now required, to exercise their vote. Thousands of young would-be voters face disenfranchisement if this goes awry. Given how keen this cohort generally is to vote Tory this must surely be an unforeseen consequence of government policy. Mustn't it?

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