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PaulB, Bern - you cannot get away from the economic facts. Nationalisation was a disaster for this country and even this Government have done some privatisation. The nationalisation of Northern Rock is regarded by them as an embarrassment and was brought about by the failures of the regatory system that was instituted by Gordon Brown.
Its very good claiming how wonderful it could be, in theory, but we have to live in the real world. Face the facts, even Communist China has had to allow free enterprise to bossom in order to make its economy work. Russia and all other former Communist countries have had to introduce free market reforms. Nationalised businesses do not work and its cloud cuckoo land to think you can somehow buck hard experience.
The profits are not huge relative to capital. Utility companies are not 'sexy' in the investment world and provide equity investments that carry relatively low long term capital risk (they do fall as well as rise, however). They offer a long term hedge against inflation but not much of an extra 'premium'. They need to make high levels of investment and need investors. To attract them they pay a relatively high level of dividends, in other words those 'high profits' go out to investors who are mainly institutional. These institutional funds include pension funds and everyone with a pension plan benefits. There are man, many elderly people who derive a large part of their income from invested 'Distribution Bonds', Equity Income Funds, with profit bonds, and pension drawdown arrangements. These are not rich people but are those who benefit most from the profits made by utilities, not those who you like to classify as 'fat cats'.
These profits are made from efficiency and scale. A nationalised company would not have the commercial freedom and expertise to exploit the world markets in the way a private company can. Indeed a Government could not possibly allow a nationalised operation the risk of having these freedoms. Shareholders, particularly the majority institutional shareholders, understand the commercial risks and imperitives better than any politician or member of the public.
Make no mistake PaulB - consumers may be feeling the pinch of rising energy prices but it would be far worse under a nationalised system.