It's actually even worse than this - in the case of Water, the original water companies were built by local government providing clean water to their own reside

It's actually even worse than this - in the case of Water, the original water companies were built by local government providing clean water to their own residents and paid for by long-term loans. First, the Labour Party nationalised the local water companies with no recompense to repay the local government debts. Then, the Conservative Party sold off the "nationalised" water companies, but kept the money raised rather than handing it back to local government. In many cases it can't even be described as "privatisation" because the resulting industries have been bought by other people's governments. It is literally the worst of all worlds.