Utility Week

Community Discontent, but technologically we are living in a different world. The most significant tech advance, of course, is the inter- net, which ushered in the Infor- mation Age. Admittedly, with all the misinformation swirling around these days, that label hasn't aged well, but the internet is about more than hate speech and pornography. Oh yes, it's also about shopping! So addicted to online shop- ping are we that many of us are doing it in our sleep, or at least shopping when we should be sleeping. According to data collected from the shopping habits of users of John Lewis's credit card, one in 15 purchases are made between midnight and 6am, which is a 23 per cent increase on the previous year. Shop till you drop, it would appear, or at least shop till you drop off. Anger management Not everyone stays up the small hours shopping. Some people have more important things to do. People such as the president of the United States, for instance. Like Margaret Thatcher, Donald Trump gets by with very little sleep. But perhaps because there was no internet in the 1980s, Thatcher spent those hours poring over policy documents and scribbling Disconnector Publishing director, Utilities: Ellen Bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellenbennett@fav-house.com; Content director: Jane Gray, janegray@fav-house.com, t: 01342 333004; Editor: Suzanne Heneghan, t: 01342 332106, e: suzanneheneghan@fav-house.com Digital editor: James Wallin, 01342 332015, jameswallin@fav-house.com; Intelligence editor: Denise Chevin, 01342 332087, denisechevin@fav-house.com Energy correspondent: Tom Grimwood, t: 01342 332061, e: tomgrimwood@fav-house.com; Policy correspondent: David Blackman, e: davidblackman@ fav-house.com; Reporter: Adam John, t: 01342 332069, e: adamjohn@fav-house.com; Water correspondent: Ruth Williams, e: ruthwilliams@fav-house.com, t: 01342 332069 Editorial assistant: Greg Jones, t: 01342 332102, e: gregjones@fav-house.com; Production editor: Paul Newton, t: 01342 332085, e: paulnewton@fav-house.com; Business development manager: Ben Hammond, e: benhammond@ fav-house.com. t: 01342 332116; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, e: sarahwood@fav-house.com. t: 01342 332117 Conference sponsorship manager: Sophie Abbott, t: 01342 332062, e: sophieabbott@fav-house.com; General enquiries: 01342 332000; Membership enquiries: Peter Bissell, t: 01342 332057, e: peterbissell@fav-house.com. 2,500 Average circulation Jan–Dec 2018 Membership subscriptions: UK £769+VAT per year. Overseas £781 per year. Contact Peter Bissell on: 01342 332057 Utility Week is a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), the regulator of the UK's magazine and newspaper industry. We abide by the Editors' Code of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. If you think we have not met those standards and want to make a complaint, please contact the Editor. If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you want more information about IPSO or the Editors' Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk. er's profits. Not many of the people in Economy, reckons the great man. We're all in it together… The pilots at BA are asking for a he'y pay rise when some other, less fortunate groups of people are being asked to make do with less. Such as FTSE-100 chief executives, for instance. Yup, you heard that right. The "fat cats" of common mythology are being forced to tighten their belts, apparently. Bosses saw their median pay fall by 13 per cent last year, accord- ing to a report by the Financial Times that quoted research by the CIPD, the professional body for the HR industry, and the High Pay Centre think-tank. Before you rush to set up a Just Giving page, Disconnector feels obliged to reveal that still leaves them on £3.5 million a year that, let's face it, is enough for most people. And talking of most people, the median salary for a British worker is around 29 grand, which is a 119th of £3.5 million. And share options, of course. Retail therapy Of course, not everything is the same as it was. Our shouty poli- tics might be familiar to anyone who remembers Enoch Powell, Red Robbo, and the Winter of It was ever thus We're o'en told we're liv- ing through "unprecedented times", but to Disconnector's jaundiced eye there seems to be a distinct whiff of the 1970s about the place. Okay, we may not have gangs of skinheads strolling around our town centres but Tommy Robinson manages to mobilise plenty of supporters at will, and our current prime minister once described black people as "picaninnies" in a column for the Daily Telegraph and it's done his political career no harm. On the other side of the political divide, her majesty's official opposition is led by a scruffy old Marxist who wants to nationalise everything – starting with utilities – while his front bench team promotes policy not in terms it making sense, but in terms of it having been "ratified" by the correct committee. Even strikes seem to be back in vogue, with BA pilots forcing the company into a two-day shutdown. They've been offered 11 per cent over three years but are demand- ing a profit-share mechanism that would top up their pay by up to 7 per cent "in the good years". One wonders how many of the people flying with BA get paid a share of their employ- UTILITY WEEK | 13TH - 19TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | 31 notes in the margins, to be amended by the army of civil servants attending No 10. Not Donald. Oh no, he watches Fox News and NBC and formulates policy accord- ingly in real time. That, and he gets involved in furious Twitter spats with celebrities. Last week he unleashed a stream of invective against celebrity couple "filthy mouthed" Chrissy Teigen (TV host) and her husband "bor- ing" John Legend (multi-award winning music producer). The reason for his ire was strange, even by the high bar set by his Donaldness. NBC had run a news seg- ment about criminal justice reform in the US and featured Legend on it in his capacity as the founder of FREEAMERICA, a criminal justice reform cam- paigning group. Legend's crime was that he omitted to mention Trump by name or credit him with pass- ing a criminal justice reform act, which Donald thought was an unforgivable the' of praise that was rightfully his. Legend was quick to respond with a tweet of his own expressing his incredu- lity that the president spent Sunday nights scouring the TV channels looking for praise. As for "filthy mouthed" Teigen, she did her best to live up to the moniker, tweeting that Trump was a "pussy ass bitch".

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