"It is going to be tough for many Evertonians.

But regulators take their cue and their powers from government. There have been negative comparisons with the telecoms industry and its regulator Ofcom, which was prompted by the government to ensure things like fast broadband received adequate investment.It’s not just a matter of supply. Demand is an issue, too. The size of the population and its concentration in cities have both risen while the weather is getting wetter.

I recently went to see rusting pipes laid near Finsbury Park in London during Queen Victoria’s reign over 150 years ago being replaced with bright blue plastic ones.When the old pipes were laid, the land above them was semi-rural. Today, water company engineers are working underneath housing estates with all the disruption and expense that entails.In more recent history, population density in cities has gathered pace. In 1990, when water companies were being privatised, 45 million people lived in urban areas. Today that number is 58 million – and increase of nearly 30%.

Meanwhile, there has been a 9% increase in rainfall in the past 30 years compared to the 30 years before that, according to the Met Office, and six of the 10 wettest years since Queen Victoria was on the throne have been after 1998.Heavier and more intense rainfall overwhelms ageing infrastructure like storm drains that then discharge sewage into nearby waterways. And replacing this infrastructure requires enormous investment.

As Ofwat CEO David Black recently pointed out, many companies are often keen to blame everyone and everything but themselves for bad outcomes.

Two weeks ago, Ofwat announced fines of £168m for three water firms over a “catalogue of failures” in how they ran their sewage works, resulting in excessive spills from storm overflows."I couldn't undo my dog's lead and I thought I'd just stay under the table with her.

"Everyone was smashing things on the table," she said.BBC reporter Scott Ellis followed the protests throughout the day.

He said: "There's been three or four hours or either stand offs or running battles through the city centre's streets."You can see people having a nice drink in the sun and the next thing is there will be protesters running back, throwing things at the police who are coming through with dogs and horses."