Water companies have been given the green light to raise customers' bills by another £3.4 billion over the coming years.

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We're told the money is needed to improve ageing infrastructure, protect drinking water and meet rising demand.

My response is a simple one.

Not because those improvements aren't needed. They plainly are.

But because the companies asking us to foot the bill are the very ones that have presided over leaking pipes, polluted rivers and beaches, and unreliable water supplies. They are asking customers to pay for failures that should have been prevented in the first place.

And I'll tell you why they dare.

Because the Government lets them. Ofwat lets them. And, in the end, we let them.

I don't often reach for the language of class conflict, but the relationship between Britain's water companies and their customers has started to feel oddly medieval. The barons demand........

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