Tag Archives: fail

Rishi Sunak’s NHS fail in a single social media post

Rishi Sunak in a hospital: he can get in because he can afford to jump the 7+ million-strong queue he and his Tory colleagues have created.

This just about sums up Tory health policy for the last 14 years:

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

It is as Prem Sikka explained in a speech to the House of Lords (and an article for Left Foot Forward):

The government has reduced access to healthcare.

That was, is and remains the entire point of everything the Tories have done with the National Health Service since 2010 – and is the reason millions have died while awaiting NHS care under their rule.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Rishi Sunak’s NHS waiting lists excuses are nonsense

Rishi Sunak at a hospital: he made big speeches, rolled up his sleeves… and made matters worse.

Rishi Sunak has admitted that he has failed to cut NHS waiting lists, despite having promised to do so.

He made the confession in an interview with oily TV presenter Piers Morgan, but there’s a sting in the tail:

Did you spot the excuse? “Industrial action has had an impact.” Pathetic.

He also said nurses had received a pay rise – which was actually a real-terms pay cut.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

Peter Stefanovic put these lies to rest in the first few seconds of the following clip (and the rest is well worth watching too):

And Left Foot Forward has also had a few things to say:

Sunak wants you to believe that record-high waiting lists are the result of factors beyond the government’s control, such as the pandemic and subsequent strikes among NHS workers over low pay and poor conditions.

Except, as many have pointed out, the total number of people waiting for treatment was at a record level even before the pandemic, and had been rising every year since 2013.

In fact, the waiting list for treatment has been growing for much of the last decade, passing three million in 2014, four million in 2017, five million in 2021 and seven million in 2022.

In February 2020, the last full month before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the waiting list stood at 4.57 million.

The Royal College of Nursing has also previously hit back at Sunak’s claim that strike action has resulted in soaring waiting lists.

The RCN said last year: “Waiting lists were growing long before the pandemic and strike action – and the prime minister should take responsibility for the knife-edge position of the NHS and not point the finger.”

Do I have to point out how vital it is that you bear all this in mind when you consider where to put your ‘X’ on the ballot paper at the general election?

Source: Why Rishi Sunak’s excuse for failing to cut NHS waiting lists doesn’t add up – Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK’s progressive debate


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

The Conservatives’ health service failure – summed up in a single graph

Trolley wait: this was almost unheard-of in 2011 but after 13 years of Tory rule, the number of people waiting 12 hours or more on a trolley in a corridor for NHS attention has increased by more than 3,000 per cent.

This Channel 4 News report speaks for itself – almost.

Take a look, then I’ll spill the beans:

There’s just one element missing – the fact that these massive, and increasing, failures are due in their entirety to Conservative government interference in our healthcare, in order to create a false case for privatisation.

The Tories have been obsessed with ending the National Health Service as a means to keep the people of the UK healthy, and focussed on turning it into a means of creating a profit for greedy fatcat health company shareholders and executives.

The fact that your health – or the health of people you know – has suffered as a result is of no concern to them at all.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

And with Labour under Keir Starmer and Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting promising also to increase privatisation, there seems to be no end in sight for the agony.

So, who are you planning to support at the general election this year?


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Hundreds of doctors to sue NHS because government PPE failings gave them Long Covid

One MORE time: the PPE used in UK hospitals is pictured bottom right. Hundreds of doctors are now suing the UK government because they say they contracted Long Covid due to the inadequacy of the PPE they were provided.

In a sane country, wouldn’t this be enough reason for a government to take action to recover the millions (billions?) of pounds it wasted on useless Personal Protective Equipment during the Covid-19 crisis?

Hundreds of doctors plan to sue the NHS, claiming a lack of proper PPE left them disabled with Long Covid.

The case centres on an NHS diktat to downgrade the level of masks when the virus took hold. Staff were only required to wear blue surgical masks, plastic aprons and gloves.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

They claim they are facing financial ruin and that authorities should have known they were being placed at risk.

The government could recoup a huge amount of money, just by taking action to claw back the money wasted on inadequate PPE.

For example: what about the £203 million given to PPE Medpro, the company pushed through the illegal Tory VIP lane for contracts by Michelle Mone, who’s said to have profited by £65 million from the deal?

That could provide a million quid in compensation for more than 200 doctors with Long Covid.

And its just the tip of the VIP lane iceberg.

Why does the public purse always have to pay for the profligate failures of the government?

Source: Hundreds of doctors to sue NHS after lack of proper PPE left them disabled with Long Covid – Mirror Online


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

John McDonnell gets it: UK risks shift to fascism without radical change soon

John McDonnell: he’s right to fear a far-right ascendancy if current Labour leader Keir Starmer fails to restore faith in UK politics.

Public disillusionment and disconnection with politics could lay the UK wide open to an invasion of far-right populists and fascists.

The onus will be on the Labour Party – if it wins the next election – to re-establish trust in politics and restore belief that politicians work for the people, rather than leech off of them.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

That’s what former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell believes, as he has written in The Guardian:

“People will be patient as they fully realise how broken Britain is, but the foundations of credible and radical change will have to be seen to be being laid early in the life of the incoming Labour government,” he writes, calling for a “real strategy” to restore the value of wages and incomes.

There had also been a retreat on key core policy commitments, he said, such as the level of investment needed for Labour’s green new deal.

“If Labour fails to set out early upon a path of radical change to secure the all-round wellbeing and security of our people, then inevitably disillusionment will set in,” McDonnell said. “The risk then is the potential for a significant shift in our politics to the right, with the return of a Conservative party completely shorn of any traditional one nation Tories and under the dominance of the populist right both within the party and beyond.”

That is This Writer’s fear – as I have laid out in previous articles like this.

The best way to avoid a Tory resurgence of any kind at all, and particularly a growth of the far right, would be to change the general election system to a form of proportional representation – but Keir Starmer opposes this.

Without it, the UK risks falling into fascism. The only promises Starmer has made suggest five years of sub-Tory stasis with no economic improvement and huge harm to our health after the NHS is fully turned over to private-sector asset-strippers.

That would feed exactly the disillusion that John McDonnell fears.

Starmer has been warned – and all the signs suggest he is ignoring the warning. You must decide for yourself why he would do such a thing.

Source: Britain risks shift to far right if Labour fails to enact ‘radical change’, says John McDonnell | Labour | The Guardian


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Former Marine to stand against Johnny Mercer after failure to end veterans’ homelessness

Keyboard warrior: Johnny Mercer responded with anger to the revelation that an Armed Forces veteran will try to unseat him at the next general election after he failed to reduce veterans’ homelessness, instead presiding over a 14 per cent increase.

A former Royal Marine is to stand as Labour’s candidate against former Army officer and current Minister for Veterans Affairs, Johnny Mercer, at the next general election – as Mercer himself suggested.

Mercer swore to end veterans’ homelessness in 2023, saying, “Hold me to account.”

But he has failed dramatically, with veterans’ homelessness in fact increasing by 14 per cent.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

Here’s Carol Vorderman with some facts:

Will he apologise, asked Mr Thomas.

Apparently not.

Instead – well, here’s Vorders again:

To support herself, Vorders has tweeted some evidence:

If any part of the factual information above is wrong, This Writer would be interested to know.

But it all looks fairly clear to me.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Read this – on why Israel’s crusade against Hamas may be pointless

Between bombardments: this is northern Gaza. It looks terrible – but it seems Israel has failed to cause significant damage to Hamas.

This fascinating ‘X’ thread sheds a lot of interesting light on Israel’s tactics and behaviour in its war against Gaza, that was set to restart on November 27.

Read the thread and let This Writer know if you agree with its conclusions.

Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!

So: not only has Israel’s campaign against Hamas failed to achieve any of its objectives, but it has actually enhanced that organisation’s reputation, both domestically and abroad.

So: Mossad is probably the worst intelligence agency in the developed world. This confirms a warning I gave to my buddies down the pub – that if Mossad agents were standing directly behind me, trying to assassinate me, everybody in front of me would be dead before I was.

So: Mossad’s domestic counterpart, Shin Bet, failed to detect what Hamas was doing under its nose; unsurprising, if it managed to confuse the head of Hezbollah (Hizballah?) with a greengrocer.

So: After 50 days, none of Hamas’s most important functions have been significantly degraded. Israel’s lack of effectiveness is demonstrated by a minister’s comment that it may use a nuclear weapon there.

So: Israel has attacked civil society in order to pressurise Hamas.

So: Israel’s strategy of slaughtering children and depriving an entire society of its basic necessities has not worked, and may result in disaster for that country, as it did for Nazi Germany in Russia, for example.

So: Israel has killed more UN staff, journalists and medical personnel than Hamas.

So: Israel’s sponsors in the United States and Europe are getting increasingly cold feet, realising that Israel’s conduct is damaging their interests in the Middle East.

Allegedly!

Do you think the facts fit the thesis above?

Let us know.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Gavin Williamson wanted to clear his name of bullying accusation. He failed

Williamson apologises: he has failed to clear himself of bullying Wendy Morton and was ordered to make reparation to her.

Serial Tory failure Gavin Williamson has failed again – to clear his name of bullying fellow Tory Wendy Morton.

He quit as Minister Without Portfolio last year after sending expletive-laden texts to former Tory chief whip Wendy Morton, accusing her of excluding some MPs from the late Queen’s funeral last September.

Ms Morton lodged a complaint with Parliament in November and Williamson quit his government position in order to clear his name – but the inquiry found against him and he was ordered to deliver his apology in a speech in the House of Commons on Monday (September 4).

He said he accepted he had used “intemperate and inappropriate language,” and he accepted “the decision that my conduct constituted a breach” of the policy.

“I will do my utmost to ensure this does not happen again,” he added.

Opposition parties have questioned why Mr Sunak appointed Sir Gavin as a minister in October last year, after being told about Ms Morton’s complaint – and it is a good question, especially as Williamson’s apology comes at the same time as Chris Pincher’s suspension.

Pincher had to resign as a Tory whip after he admitted groping two men. It subsequently transpired that then-prime minister Boris Johnson had promoted him to the Whips’ office, despite having been informed of previous transgressions by the same MP.

Bullying is not the same as sexual offences – but the fault of the Tory leader in both cases is the same; giving a job to an MP whose integrity was, at the very least, questionable (and proved to be nonexistant).

Williamson sent the abusive texts to Ms Morton on September 13, 2022, complaining that he and other colleagues had been excluded from the Queen’s funeral for political reasons. Here are the most offending messages:

Ms Morton complained to the Conservative Party about his conduct on October 24. He refused to apologise.

Ex-Conservative Party Chair Jake Berry said he told Rishi Sunak of the complaint on the day it was made. Sunak subsequently made Williamson a Cabinet minister.

Morton handed Williamson’s messages to the Conservative Party on October 26, two days after she made her complaint – but Sunak insisted that he did not see them until they were published in The Sunday Times on November 6.

Do you believe that?

An official investigation into Williamson’s words to Ms Morton was launched on November 8 – but, by then, other allegations had been made against him.

According to the BBC,

Sir Gavin told a senior civil servant to “slit your throat” and “jump out of the window” when he was defence secretary.

An unnamed official told the Guardian Sir Gavin, who is now a Cabinet Office minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, “deliberately demeaned and intimidated” them.

The official said they raised concerns to the Ministry of Defence’s human resources department but made no formal complaint.

Williamson did not deny using the language mentioned in the accusation.

But he issued a statement: “I strongly reject this allegation and have enjoyed good working relationships with the many brilliant officials I have worked with across government.

“No specific allegations have ever been brought to my attention.”

Williamson resigned in order to fight Ms Morton’s claims against him on November 8. He also said he did not want to become a distraction from the work of Sunak’s government.

It was the third time the serial quitter had resigned a government role.

Williamson’s previous Cabinet role ended when he was sacked as Education Secretary in September 2021.

At the time, I wrote the following:

England’s education system is (momentarily) stronger with the announcement that Gavin Williamson has been sacked from his post as the minister in charge, as part of a Cabinet reshuffle by Boris Johnson.

His two-year tenure stands as testament to the fact that having no Education Secretary is better than having him in the role.

Incompetent Williamson’s failures are fast becoming the stuff of legend, with the headline disasters well-known to all of us:

In 2020, when A-level students could not take their exams because of Covid-19, he used a algorithm to allocate marks – that was rigged to make it seem that privately-educated pupils were more intelligent than the riff-raff from the state system that he ran.

He later tried to force disadvantaged, black and minority ethnic children in England to take exams when other kids didn’t have to, claiming that they respond better to examination conditions. It seemed clear racism – an attempt to put these children down with duff results.

He made it clear that the government expected all schools to open as normal in January this year – then closed them after just one day because prime minister Boris Johnson ordered a new lockdown and he was unaware of it.

He decided to foist Latin as a subject onto state school pupils, rather than anything useful. At the time I wrote: “Having killed the economy with Brexit and enormous numbers of the population with Covid-19, the Tories now want us all to learn a dead language.”

He scrapped dozens of legal rights for children.

He also wanted a clampdown on indiscipline in schools after the return from Covid-19 lockdown – but provided no evidence whatsoever to support his wild claim that our children had gone feral.

Before Boris Johnson gave him the bullet, it was suggested that Williamson would blame school pupils and parents if Covid-19 infections spike after the start of the school term.

Prior to that, he was Defence Secretary under Theresa May – but was sacked from that job too.

In May 2019, I wrote:

Theresa May has sacked Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary, saying she has “lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of defence secretary and as a member of her cabinet”.

It appears he is to take responsibility for an embarrassing leak from the National Security Council, stating that Huawei is to take a contract to help provide the UK’s 5G network, despite concerns over spyware funnelling information to the Chinese government.

But was he really to blame?

Mr Williamson himself is on the record as swearing on his children’s life that he had nothing to do with the leak.

But it seems an inquiry run by Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill has found that he was responsible for the leak, which has angered the United States government, which has banned Huawei from government networks and pressurised the UK to do the same.

Alternatively, some have suggested that the US is simply protecting its interests, saying Huawei provides better service than American firms.

According to The Independent, Mr Williamson is said to believe his firing was “politically motivated”.

It has also been alleged that Williamson was knighted on the wishes of Boris Johnson because he knew of connections between Johnson and Russia that the former prime minister wanted to keep quiet.

So there are certainly a lot of claims about Williamson. Did he ever clear up those previous allegations? Not as far as This Writer is aware.

Has he cleared up the other allegations of bullying? Not as far as This Writer is aware.

It is possible that some – especially among the Conservative Party – will want to close the book on Gavin Williamson’s alleged wrongdoing now.

I would suggest that it would be premature to do so. Let’s have all the answers first.

The privatised water firms’ latest scam: cut off your supply

Clean water: only a few days ago, this site stated: “Enjoy the photograph. Soon the only clean water you’ll see will be in images like this.” How true that was.

This is a sick joke:

Much of England is at risk of severe water stress by the 2030s if action is not taken to improve consumption and efficiency, new analysis has shown.

Data from water companies and the Environment Agency suggests that 12 out of 17 English regions will face severe water stress in the next two decades.

This includes almost the entirety of the South of England and the Midlands with demand expected to exceed supply.

At the moment, no region in England currently faces water stress

Oh no?

People in West Sussex might disagree with that. Read this:

Hundreds of Southern Water customers across Horsham and Chichester Districts were left with ‘no water’ following a ‘failure’ at one of the company’s supply works on Sunday, May 14.

Southern Water said the issue was caused by a failure at Hardham Water Supply Works.

So it seems Southern Water has not been efficient and its service failed as a result.

Is this a result of the long-term, profit-driven under-investment in the water supply infrastructure that people like Feargal Sharkey have been highlighting – with increasing success – over the last few (let’s be honest) decades?

There is no incentive that can induce the water companies to improve their infrastructure – either for supply or for the processing of raw sewage. Regarding the latter, we know these firms are happy to pay millions of pounds in fines while paying tens of millions to their shareholders:

The only answer is to re-nationalise. The public purse is paying for “sticking-plaster” repairs to the damage anyway.

There’s just one problem:

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have any intention to allow the water companies to be brought back into public ownership.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Sunak’s caginess over his wife’s shares is suspicious – because of what they’ve done

Akshata Murty and her husband, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak: it is hard to believe their actions have been entirely innocent.

There’s a lot of “nothing to see here, guv” about the way the government – and Rishi Sunak in particular – has handled the controversy over it handing public money to firms in which his wife holds shares.

After it was found that Akshata Murty had shares in Koru Kids, a childcare agency set to benefit from a policy in last month’s budget, Sunak has published a new list of his own financial interests including it. It seems to have been omitted previously.

We have also heard that the government has awarded a contract to her father’s firm Infosys, in which she also has shares. This business was found to be operating in Russia after the government imposed sanctions on any commercial operation doing so, and its bosses promised to withdraw from that country after the transgression was discovered.

It was subsequently revealed that Infosys had not withdrawn from Russia immediately – but Sunak’s government gave it a contract worth a small fortune anyway.

So that’s two infringements – of government policy and Parliamentary rules – in favour of Rishi Sunak’s wife.

Before either of them, we learned that Ms Murty had avoided paying £20 million in taxes by holding non-domiciled tax status. This created a huge stink as she was understood to be living in the prime minister’s Downing Street flat with him – a tax avoider living in the heart of government.

There were calls for Sunak to be removed as prime minister over it.

But then Ms Murty agreed to give up her non-dom status and start paying the full amount of UK taxes.

That leads to the very obvious question posed in the second of the two tweets below:

“If Rishi Sunak’s wife is suddenly prepared to hand over several million to keep her husband in a £150k job… you really need to think about why this might be.”

Yes, indeed.

The logical inference from it all is that he has been using his position in that job to funnel huge amounts of cash into private firms in which his wife has an interest. Do we even know if he has declared all her shareholdings now?

Public opinion seems clear:

It is all speculation. But the facts on which it is based are irrefutable.

Akshata Murty did give up her non-dom status and agree to pay millions of pounds in tax, in order to ensure her husband stayed in his £150k-per-year job.

And Rishi Sunak’s government did hand large amounts of money to private businesses in which his wife had shares.

It’s extremely hard to see any of it as innocent.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook