Cross-party MPs demand government break Thames Water talks with US hedge funds

In the long and troubled history of privatised utilities, Thames Water has become a symbol of what happens when the logic of financial extraction meets the weight of public necessity. A cross-party group of MPs is now urging the British government to abandon negotiations with the American hedge funds that effectively control the company — carrying £20 billion in debt and serving 16 million people — and to consider emergency legislation that would place it under temporary public administration. The intervention reflects a growing conviction that institutions built on distressed-debt speculation