But those financial tweaks can be viewed as a standard part of the negotiating cut and thrust when trying to repair a broken balance sheet. The senior creditors opened with an outrageously greedy proposal that they should suffer haircuts of only 20% on their Thames debt. They’ve been beaten back to 30% and told to find a bit more equity and to boost the debt headroom. Fine, but that was always the easy bit, relatively speaking. The critical stuff is still the euphemistic regulatory “easements” and the on-the-ground operational details. On those fronts, there are at least three reasons why the picture for outsiders, including the poor old customers, remains as clear as a polluted watercourse.