On this day

in 1989, in Britain, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher began the controversial privatisation of the public water authorities.

The debate at the time was so banal; economic illiterate twats led the way with the "water's free" mantra. How I yearned for one of the ministers at the time to challenge one of the twats with a question asking them if they would get out of bed at 2am to fix a burst water main or maybe work in a factory producing pipes without wages. When I tried it on the pub bores it worked a treat and shut them up for quite a while.