Wait, you're saying that British voters in 1989 couldn't reasonably have known the Conservative Party favoured water privatisation, because they wouldn't have read the small print of their manifesto? And also that voting margins and turnouts were so small that the election results might not be representative?

This was the third successive Thatcher government, after the previous two had sold off Britain's nationalised companies in aerospace, telecoms, car manufacturing, oil and natural gas [0]. It got reelected in a landslide victory with 75% turnout. [1].

And then you call someone else disingenuous?

The British people absolutely got what they wanted, and have only themselves to blame.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/29/short-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_United_Kingdom_general_el...