Sorry I lost you at kettle. My point was that kettles, or any item really, are commodities. Food is a commodity also. Kettles - representing consumer goods here - and food - representing things we need but can make choices about - can be regulated by the market, though one will most likely want controls over food production and also the production of kettles to meet health and safety regulations. Water, however (and in modern high-tech societies power sources such as electricity and gas and their progeniters e.g. coal) is not a commodity that can be regulated by the market because we cannot choose to do without it or choose a similar item that will do much the same job.
Going back to kettles, if I cannot afford a Russell-Hobbs kettle I can buy Asda's own brand. If I cannot find a kettle I can afford I can use a saucepan (it will use more energy but it will still boil water), so the market can regulate the production and distribution of kettles and regulate the price as well. If no-one buys Russell-Hobbs kettles (sorry, can't think of another brand off-hand) then the price will fall, no-one has to have a Russell-Hobbs kettle, they can have another brand or use a saucepan. We have decided that making kettles should be regulated so they do not cause fires (electric ones) and do not melt on the hob (hob kettles), so whichever brand I choose, it will do me no harm.
As to food - which is something we cannot do without - if I cannot afford fillet steak I can always buy rump steak or some concoction of stewing steak already cut into cubes for me. I will have to cook the stewing steak much longer, but I will still be eating. The same goes for all food items. If I cannot afford bread made with specialist grains and artisan baked I can still buy bread. And because we have already decided that food production must be regulated, then all the breads I can buy will be edible and do me no harm.
Now, water (and in a high-tech society all forms of energy). No animal can live without access to water. Water is also a potent spreader of disease if it is not clean. When I shop for water I cannot buy a similar alternative, I have to have clean water. I could buy alcohol to drink, or milk (but see that all animals need water) but these will not quench my thirst adequately and I cannot use them for washing-up, washing clothes etc, nor can I irrigate my garden/farm/park etc with them, they will mostly kill the plants or stunt growth. Yes, I could collect rain water but I still have to pay for this water (waste water bill), it's not free anymore.
Since nothing can live without water I have no choice but to buy it at whatever price it is. The price cannot be regulated by the market because no-one can refuse to buy it or have something similar instead.
At this point marketeers will point out that I can shop around for a water company to buy my water from. However, in the UK that is not the case. If I live in Severn Trent's area then Severn Trent has a monopoly, I cannot buy water from Thames Water instead. Thus each water company is a monopoly and can put on any charges it wishes (this is less the case for power sources, I am aware, but we are talking of water).
Thus, water is not a commodity like kettles or fillet steak, both of which I can replace with something cheaper. If we allow water to be commodified a literal life-giving necessity could become too expensive for some to buy because there is no way to regulate the price through competition. Cartels are illegal, but it does not need a cartel for water prices to be much the same between water companies. We also have the problem that water companies are there to make profit so they will want to spend the least possible on infrastructure and keeping water clean, because their raison d'etre is not clean water but money for share holders.
This is the problem the UK and the world now have. Water has been commodified. Consumers, industry, agriculture, private people have no recourse but to buy water and the water companies can charge what they like. Because water is needed for everything we do that the price of water cannot be regulated buy the market means that the price of everything else - kettles, fillet steak etc - is affected and will carry the extra cost of water.
In this scenario the case for decommodifying water and having it as a national or a global resource, regulated by the state and run by nations themselves is difficult to argue against. A company on the other side of the world not only does not care about the problems of e.g. the UK, they cannot be regulated by the UK. Witness the struggle to stop water companies discharging raw sewage into rivers (which had been clean for over a generation whilst water was state run) and the sea. Witness the demand by water companies that they be allowed to cut off people who cannot pay their water bills - only stopped after many years because of the environmental catastrophe this can cause. The access to clean water is absolutely necessary for a disease-free society. It's regulated to make sure it is healthy, and the easiest way to regulate both cleanliness and price is for water to be run by nationalised companies democratically accountable to the people.
Much the same argument goes for electricity and gas - and is enhanced by the need of a government to regulate costs to industry for the benefit of the nation's trade.