Tory interference in our lives: anti-protest laws were rushed into practice before the Coronation, so the police could be used to arrest peaceful protesters and take them off the streets.
I seem to have started something.
Yesterday (September 21), in response to Rishi Sunak’s televised trashing of non-existent ‘Net Zero’ policies which he justified by saying, “We’re making sure government stays out of your life,” I made a couple of points about how government does exactly the opposite:
Look at your energy bill. In return for the payments you make, you receive energy that comes from a number of different sources, including some that are highly polluting. For example: coal, nuclear, gas.
On a separate but related subject, look at the amount of plastic packaging you buy in your everyday grocery shopping, much of which is unnecessary and can end up polluting the environment.
These things happen because the government allows it. Indeed, among Sunak’s measures yesterday was a plan to continue allowing the sale of polluting petrol- and diesel-powered cars for an extra five years, until 2035. Who knows what some future prime minister will do then? Extend it to 2040?
Those are three ways the government interferes with our lives, right there.
But of course, I was missing the really big things that have happened lately. Here’s Peter Stefanovic:
Rishi Sunak says he’s
“making sure Government stays out of our lives”
BOLL****! In the last 12 months he’s brought in an anti strike law to rob millions of workers of their right to strike & new laws will strip back our right to protest & limit our rights to judicial review! pic.twitter.com/LdjmmCTbK8
Perhaps we should open this up for everybody to have a say?
You could make a game of it at home: sit in a circle with everybody challenged in turn to name a way the government interferes with their life.
If you are so disposed, it could be a drinking game, with people failing to think of an example taking a sip of their substance of choice (it doesn’t have to be alcohol).
It’ll help pass these lengthening autumn evenings.
And it will help remind us all of what hideous liars the Tories in our government are.
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It’s a lie, of course. Policies to tackle climate change and bring the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions down to nothing were in both the Labour and Conservative manifestos for the 2019 general election, so 75.7 per cent of those who voted – more than 24 million people – voted for Net Zero.
On page 2 of the Tory manifesto, then-prime minister Boris Johnson stated: “I guarantee… reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution.”
The actual policies themselves were as follows:
“We will invest in nature, helping us to reach our Net Zero target with a £640 million new Nature for Climate fund. Building on our support for creating a Great Northumberland Forest, we will reach an additional 75,000 acres of trees a year by the end of the next Parliament, as well as restoring our peatland” (page 45 – marked as page 43).
“Oil and gas sector deal: The oil and gas industry employs almost 300,000 people, of whom four in 10 work in Scotland. We believe that the North Sea oil and gas industry has a long future ahead and know the sector has a key role to play as we move to a Net Zero economy. We will support this transition in the next Parliament with a transformational sector deal” (page 48 – not marked but would have been marked as page 46).
“We will lead the global fight against climate change by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as advised by the independent Committee on Climate Change. We have doubled International Climate Finance. And we will use our position hosting the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in 2020 to ask our global partners to match our ambition” (page 57 – marked as page 55).
That’s the lot – four wishy-washy promises that don’t actually mean a lot.
So, now Rishy (-washy?) Sunak has announced that he is halting a series of Net Zero policies, he is rightly being pilloried for ending things that didn’t exist in the first place.
Check out the context note on Sunak’s own ‘X’ post about his changes:
We will never impose unnecessary and heavy-handed measures on you, the British people.
Depending on which version of the above you see, it may refer to the Tory government’s own Net Zero strategy, that was published in 2021, nearly two years after the general election, comes to 368 pages, and doesn’t mention any of the measures Sunak reckons he’s scrapping.
Alternatively, it may point out that “Taxes on meat and flying had already been repeatedly ruled out by the Government. There is no proposal to require people to have seven bins, or for ‘compulsory’ car sharing. The announced changes on insulation only stand to benefit private landlords.”
The BBC’s Nick Robinson – himself a Conservative, let’s remember – absolutely hammered Sunak as a liar in an interview on the BBC’s Today programme:
"There is nothing to be scrapped.. You're making a series of claims that aren't true."
Nick Robinson calls out Rishi Sunak.
Sunak ends saying, "I don't think its right to chase the short term headlines, just assert some goal for the future without a clear plan to deliver it… pic.twitter.com/AxfLKG7Sbw
Sunak’s parting shot, about being “honest” about the way to get to Net Zero, rings hollow in the context of what had gone before.
So let us be clear: the Conservatives did have a series of policies for the UK to reach Net Zero and the electorate did vote for them – but none of those policies were part of the package that he scrapped yesterday (September 20, 2023).
Coupled to all this is a ridiculous claim – exemplified in the words of Priti Patel, below – that the government does not dictate whether UK citizens support polluters or not:
Priti Patel, "I think heat pumps are like a misselling scandal.. It's not for gov to dictate what type of heating you have in your house.. I'm a great believer in Global Britain, Britain post Brexit, innovation technology, we're there." pic.twitter.com/yxmYRT6pbb
Look at your energy bill. In return for the payments you make, you receive energy that comes from a number of different sources, including some that are highly polluting. For example: coal, nuclear, gas.
On a separate but related subject, look at the amount of plastic packaging you buy in your everyday grocery shopping, much of which is unnecessary and can end up polluting the environment.
These things happen because the government allows it. Indeed, among Sunak’s measures yesterday was a plan to continue allowing the sale of polluting petrol- and diesel-powered cars for an extra five years, until 2035. Who knows what some future prime minister will do then? Extend it to 2040?
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Housebuilding: but it won’t happen on the flood plains of environmentally-sensitive rivers, thanks to the Lords.
Allow me to take this opportunity to remind you of something I suggested when the Conservative government first announced its plan to end “nutrient neutrality” rules that protect environmentally-sensitive waterways from pollution by new housing estates:
They’ll be built on the flood plains of environmentally-sensitive rivers, and most likely without any of the mitigation measures the government has promised.
So when they flood – and they will – those houses will be filled with human “wee and poo”.
Do you really want that stuff to get into everything you own? Have a think about it.
It seems the members of the House of Lords did have a think about it (those peers love Vox Political) and threw out the whole idea:
Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill.
Lords defeat govt 177: 146.
Oppose giving local authorities power to grant planning permission to build residential properties on functional floodplains or in areas at high risk of flooding.
These houses would indeed have been built on flood plains or areas at high risk of flooding – so not only would the rivers have been full of pollution after the “nutrient neutrality” rules were scrapped, but your house would have been full of it too.
The developers wouldn’t have cared because they would have had your money already.
Oh – but now it looks like they’re not going to have your money because they’re not going to be able to build on these flood plains.
And that means they won’t be keen to donate some of that money to the Tories (which is what This Writer thinks was the whole point of the plan in the first place).
So guess who’s really mad about it? Here’s Tory MP Simon Clarke, who has indeed taken at least one donation from a property developer (I stopped looking when I found one) – and a response from a right-thinking member of the public:
The Tories are allowing the water companies to pollute our seas & rivers, destroy our environment & now you're going to allow the building trade to do the same. Good on Labour.
And would you like to know the real joy of this Tory defeat? Here‘s the BBC:
Because of the late stage at which the government tried to introduce the change, it cannot try again in the House of Commons now it has been defeated in the Lords.
Ministers would need to bring the proposal forward in a new bill.
I wonder if they will?
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Housebuilding: the Tories have been looking for something on which they can blame their failure to build enough new homes – and have found it in the form of legal protections for river life. So they are scrapping those protections and forcing you to pay for pollution prevention measures.
Exactly as This Site predicted only hours ago, evidence is showing that a Tory government decision to scrap “nutrient neutrality” rules that protect river life from harm caused by housing developments is creating huge profits for builders.
Meanwhile, the cost of cleaning up their mess is set to fall on the public purse.
Here’s the evidence about building firms:
And there you have it, what today's announcement was actually all about.
Barratt Developments' share price up 3.43% this morning company now valued at £4.34bn and Taylor Wimpey up 2.88% company valued at £3.97bn.
And The Guardianis saying the following about how the bill for their pollution will now be paid:
Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders.
So there you have it.
You paid for the privatised energy companies’ enormous profits. You paid for the privatised water firms to pollute our rivers. And now you are to pay for mitigation of the already-private builders’ attempts to kill off any remaining life in our waterways – if such mitigation ever happens.
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Poison: people are falling ill from ingesting water polluted with raw sewage, after the Tory government allowed privatised firms to dump sewage into our rivers, untreated. Why are the Tories allowing it to go on, now the hazards are clear? Is there a financial incentive for them? What is it?
Following up on the announcement that 57 swimmers were ill after swimming in waters polluted with 39 times the normal amount of e.coli bacteria, here are a couple more news articles indicating the growing scale of the problem.
"Hunstanton mayor says no-swim warning is 'scaremongering'."
But what do the Tories get out of poisoning our waters, our land and, ultimately, us? Are they getting a backhander we can’t see? If, not, then where’s the incentive?
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Rivers of Shit: isn’t it time we admitted to ourselves that it is government policy to let privatised water company shareholders pump untreated sewage into our rivers and seas and take the money saved from not treating it – along with money that should have been used to modernise the water and sewage infrastructure – as profit, while blinding the regulators that are supposed to monitor and penalise these transgressions so that we cannot know the extent of the harm?
This Site has been quiet about the ongoing crisis of the UK’s waterways being polluted with thousands of tonnes of untreated sewage lately. The reason is simply that individual stories – snapshots – don’t give you a chance to appreciate the full horror of what is happening.
The following video clip might help, though.
In it, Professor Jamie Woodward points out that not only has the government allowed privatised water firms to dump all that toxic waste into the local ecosystem, but it has slashed the budget of the regulator that is supposed to monitor any such pollution, down to one-third of what it used to be – and some may say that this wasn’t enough in the first place:
Prof Jamie Woodward(Manchester University) – "Any other industry that dumps toxic waste in the environment, the CEOs would go to prison… it's still an incredibly profitable activity to dump untreated sewage in rivers… we need to implement fines…"#BBCBreakfastpic.twitter.com/60EMeRMTZ3
With only limited means of monitoring pollution by water companies, the regulator has no way of knowing the level of harm being done. This could then be flung in all our faces by the government if we try to complain that we’re being pelted with you-know-what so that these firms can make a profit. It could be used as an excuse to do nothing.
In fact, the following suggests that it is currently being used as such an excuse:
Want to have your local river designated as bathing water?
Not unless there is at least 100 swimmers a day using that bit of river and toilets within 500 metres (1,640ft) you won't.
For those of you heading west over the next few weeks.
"Cornwall sea and rivers are most polluted by sewage in the UK. Sewage was pumped into Cornwall's waters for nearly 80,000 hours last year."https://t.co/PqjRM5NO7b
One water company – Thames Water – seemed to be facing re-nationalisation because its business plan was not only harmful to the environment but had brought it to the brink of bankruptcy…
Why hasn't Thames Water been taken into democratic public ownership yet?
Then we discovered that the firm is planning to increase its bills, to save itself from collapse. There is not even the slightest hint that any of that money will be used to purify the water it pumps into our rivers.
Thames Water boss says it’s an “unfortunate truth” that bills will have to rise to save the company from collapse.
I’ve got a different unfortunate truth: privatisation has been a complete and utter failure.
Enough is enough — put water back into public hands!
After all of last week's shenanigans I wonder if @thameswater's acting CEO Cathryn (I will not apologise) Ross will withdraw her comments about putting up customers' bills to compensate for her failures as the regulator and TW's corporate greed?https://t.co/eZmkw8XY2H
And what use is purified water when the pipes through which it runs are made of lead – and are therefore toxic – because the water companies haven’t replaced the infrastructure, as they were expected to?
"Exclusive: UK water companies have failed to replace three million toxic lead pipes."
The infrastructure is also leaking around 1.1 TRILLION litres of water out of the system every year, according to Ofwat. Then the water companies tell us we have to have hosepipe bans. They are telling us to go without the service we deserve so they can have the profit they don’t.
Typical water industry nonsense.
There is only one reason we have hosepipe bans, instead of spending our money on infrastructure they paid out billions to shareholders . That’s it. That’s all you need to know. https://t.co/0FH2eLbLqo
Cathryn Ross co-CEO of Thames Water says don't flush your loo unless it's brown
But she has six toilets, a 32ft pool, a hot tub and a loft sauna at her five-bedroom £1.7 million home, set in nearly an acre of land. pic.twitter.com/b7ajiM1VK5
— Louis 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 〓〓 💙 Defend the right to vote (@LouisHenwood) July 16, 2023
Piling even more insult on top of all this injury, one of the worst-performing water companies was named company of the year at the Water Industry Awards, 2023:
"Anglian Water named one of worst performing water companies by Environment Agency."
That of course came just 3 days after @AnglianWater was named company of the year at the Water Industry Awards 2023. What a farce.https://t.co/lPORmACAb8
Remember that you have a human right to water, meaning that if one of the privatised companies fails, the state has to pick up the bill to put it right via renationalisation.
So, far from being the salvation of this vital national utility – as it has been described recently by ministers pointing out that investment in water was a very low priority when it was privatised – the sale of water to private shareholders has destroyed our system while the people causing the damage have extracted huge fortunes from it.
And the government that should have been safeguarding the interests of customers who are forced to rely on these large monopoly businesses has deliberately blinded the watchdog organisations.
That is enemy action. Your government – and the water firms – are your enemies; they are charging you a fortune to let them poison you.
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Facemask: the amount of pollution produced by the oil and gas production that Rishi Sunak has authorised and Keir Starmer (pictured) won’t rescind is enormous. Will we all need to go back to wearing face masks, just to save ourselves from choking?
Representatives of Keir Starmer’s STP (Substitute Tory Party, formerly Labour) have admitted that they will not cancel the new North Sea oil and gas drilling licences that Rishi Sunak has given to multinational companies – many of which have given work to his wife’s family business.
"So will Labour overturn these oil and gas licenses if Keir Starmer comes to power?"
"So we won't overturn existing licenses"
Labour MP Anneliese Dodds confirming that she came into politics to help the planet burn. pic.twitter.com/y5DQ9J61MU
See, Ms Debbonaire can talk until she’s blue in the face (and not just in her politics); we see the difference between what she’s saying and what her party is doing.
And what is the practical result of new oil and gas drilling licences? Here’s a handy snapshot of what has happened already:
New oil and gas licences for the North Sea approved in the past two years will alone produce as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of nearly 14ml cars, or the entire yearly emissions of Denmark.
So an eightfold increase would produce as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of nearly 112 million cars – on top of the 14 million already being produced.
The Tories – and Keir Starmer’s mob – are literally trying to choke us to death, it seems.
So there seems very little point in supporting either of these two genocidal gangs.
What would the left gain from voting Labour?
At this juncture sweet FA other than a huge Labour majority with a PM who hates socialists and socialism.
— Chelley Ryan #EnoughIsEnough (@chelleryn99) August 1, 2023
How about giving the Greens a chance instead, then – or any socialist alternative that offers genuinely green environmental policies?
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Clement Attlee innovated. Keir Starmer will privatise
Keir Starmer: We can’t win power by spending. We need to reform and create wealth. Tory austerity hasn't secured growth. Why persist? Real average wage same as in 2005. No trickle-down. Economy won't grow without state investment. Neoliberalism has failed.https://t.co/0ilDRNf3dL
That was one politician’s response to Keir Starmer’s interview in The Observer today (Sunday, July 16, 2023).
In it, Starmer contradicts himself by saying he won’t promise to spend any more money but will prioritise economic growth and wealth creation; these cannot be achieved without investment – and indeed, investment is mentioned later in the article.
He also says he intends to impose “radical reform of public services” – by which we may infer that he means more privatisation, despite the fact that the state of the privatised water and energy firms shows it is a disaster for service provision.
We can see evidence that he supports privatisation in an interview with Starmer’s political idol, Tony Blair, on Sophy Ridge’s Sky News show this morning:
The correct response to that is to point out that public sector innovation should come from the people in charge – who are politicians. Blair was in charge of the public sector between 1997 and 2007; if he didn’t bother to innovate, preferring instead to dick around with PFI and “Third Way” nonsense, that was his mistake.
And it will be what loses Starmer his election, if he follows the same road at a time when we can all understand perfectly well that we are being ripped off by the water and energy firms.
The social media responses have gone directly to the point:
Vapid, meaningless twaddle
Investment is needed desperately in cash-starved public services and infrastructure
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈 (@TheMendozaWoman) July 16, 2023
So he's a fiscal conservative and a social conservative, but we're not supposed to call him 'a Conservative', because he's the 'opposition' to the Conservatives. I think our politics may be broken.https://t.co/BvdDAxFCcM
What is really depressing about Starmer’s article and interviews today is that he has confirmed he is a full on Thatcherite. He has even gone so far as to say there is no alternative. I despair.
Sir Keir Starmer KC has just confirmed that Labour will keep the two-child policy.
UK set for a massive depopulation crisis. Without the help of immigrants or an improved birth rate to solve that crisis, we face an unsolvable social care crisis in future years.
After Independent candidate wins council by-election, call goes out to support Independents in this week’s Parliamentary polls
Agree with every word of this. We can defeat the Tories & Tory-lite New Labour by voting for independent candidates. It’s the only possible route for real chahge. Labour are under the control of a right wing faction who care more about their own personal power than anything else! https://t.co/jR4pVkTAcB
Expect to see more support for Independent candidates as the week progresses.
As the UK braces for more pollution-induced soaring temperatures, here comes a Bill to stop politicians benefiting from oil and gas profits
Europe is set to record its hottest-ever temperature – beating the 2021 record.
Fossil fuel firms have brought us to the brink of climate disaster.
On Tuesday, I'll present a Parliamentary bill to ban MPs from receiving any financial or other benefits from oil & gas companies. pic.twitter.com/XmYAvsHziJ
Step 1. Only test at places that you control & that you have "designated" as bathing water. Anywhere not designated is not tested, could be highly toxic even if people swim there, doesn't matter, no designation, no testing, no problem. 100% record. (3/7)https://t.co/cSlA3qjB45
Yes I did say that. Even on days that water quality is tested the @EnvAgency dumps the worst 15% of test results and don't use them in the final count. Cheating? 100% record. (5/7) pic.twitter.com/OjYj3SFEn7
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Number of people waiting long periods for PIP claim result has plummeted
The number of disabled people waiting longer than six months to be told whether they have been successful in their claim for a key disability benefit has plummeted over the last year, new figures have shown. https://t.co/JTU40FEfCz
— Disability News Service (@johnpringdns) July 8, 2023
The number waiting longer than six months has dropped from more than 20,000 to just 300 within 12 months, and the DWP says it has halved the time it takes in acting on a claim.
But how many claims are the DWP processing now, in comparison to 12 months ago? What is the figure as a proportion of all claims received? And – more to the point – how many are successful?
Ofgem asks energy suppliers to publish all their tariffs, so customers know what deals are worthwhile
Pleased to say, after my letter to @ofgem asking it to ensure all energy firms publish all tariffs (even existing customer only tariffs) for transparency & scrutiny, its now asked them to do so. Hopefully it works, if not we'll push for rule change. See https://t.co/bZ2bpr3gvA
Scam adverts: the government has STILL enacted no laws to protect you against them
It's 6yrs since we started seeing mass proliferation of scam ads 5yrs since I sued Facebook. 4yrs since they settled (for £3m to charity). 4yrs since the online harms white paper (still not law) 18mth since they agreed to inc scams in it. 1 day since first deep fake scam ad…
Are doctors in Scotland well-advised to suspend strikes after pay offer of 17.5% over two years?
Doctors in Scotland have suspended strikes following a revised pay deal
BMA Scotland said it would recommend its members accept a pay increase of 17.5% over two years. They had been poised to walk out for three days next week
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) July 8, 2023
It may seem a lot but doctors in Scotland have only suspended their strike action for a pay deal of 8.75 per cent per year – that’s still less than the current rate of inflation and therefore a pay cut.
But it is more than junior doctors have been offered by Health Secretary Steve Barclay – whose own pay packet has not been reduced by inflation.
Meanwhile, teachers are being told their own job is a “vocation” – meaning it is especially worthy of dedication – and they should be happy with £27,000 a year, by Heather Wheeler. Take a look at this point:
Teaching isn't a vocation any more its the recommendation once you get a degree in any subject – "you can go & teach now" – unqualified, no teacher training – no wonder they quit after a couple of years. https://t.co/F8PV3cAHpt
There is no degree in being a member of Parliament, and most of the degrees in politics don’t seem to be worth the paper they’re written on (look at the havoc wreaked on the nation by graduates of Oxford’s Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) course). It is a career for which there is no qualification and cannot be described as a vocation – but Heather Wheeler draws down a salary of £82,000 a year, plus expenses.
And it is important to remember that teachers aren’t just striking to get better pay for themselves. Government spending on education suffered its longest-ever decline under the Tory governments between 2011 and 2019, and teachers are striking to ensure that education as a whole is properly funded:
In yesterday’s debate in Parliament on education I tried to bring sense of reality explaining what’s happened to education spending since 2010 & why teachers were striking & marching outside not just for fair pay but also proper funding for schools. Solidarity to @NEUnion pic.twitter.com/uKmwUdt6G9
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) July 6, 2023
And the Tory arguments that pay increases would raise the rate of inflation have already been proved false.
So there is no good reason for refusing to pay doctors, teachers and other striking workers what they are due – which would bring them to parity – in real terms – with their pay in 2010. And there’s no good reason for refusing to properly fund education and the NHS either; taxation is currently at its highest in something like 70 or 80 years, which should mean public money is available for such projects. What have the Tories done with it?
All of the above supports the following short clip, making an important point that should be remembered by everyone who complains about strikes:
Did Jeremy Corbyn grab Israel Advocacy member – as he claims – or was the MP the one who was assaulted?
From this "Israel Advocacy Movement" video, it looks very much like (despite false claims to the contrary in the voiceover) their YouTuber Joseph Cohen assaulted @jeremycorbyn at the Palestine demo yesterday.
Here’s video footage of what happened. The context note beneath it clarifies exactly what really did happen. Reggie D Hunter’s comment is pertinent too:
I respect Jeremy Corbyn but if he physically overpowered me in any way, I would go somewhere and eat a bowl steroids https://t.co/IPQiQzvYNZ
— Reginald D Hunter (@reginalddhunter) July 7, 2023
These aggressively Zionist, pro-Israel goons think they can do whatever they like and then lie about it when we can see what’s really happening via their own recordings.
Remember that, next time one of them makes a wild accusation.
Most train ticket offices in England to be shut within three years, no matter how many people it disadvantages
Most train ticket offices in England to shut within 3 yrs.
Companies got £13.3bn subsidy last yr.
They chase profits. No concern about passengers – no guards, ticket office, advice, security
From a friend who works in a station ticket office. This is why staffing CANNOT be cut.
“Just this afternoon during our shift changeover a lady knocked on our ticket office window asking for help. She is partially sighted and cannot use the ticket machines. I went straight out…
— Simon Harris – Man Behaving Dadly (THAT’S DADLY) (@simonharris_mbd) July 7, 2023
Does anybody remember a piece of law called the Disability Discrimination Act? Did it not make provision for a situation like this?
If not, is it time that Act was amended?
Jeremy Hunt to appear on Martin Lewis ITV show about mortgages – and you can help grill him
NEWS: I'm pleased to say the Chancellor @Jeremy_Hunt's agreed to join me for my emergency Mortgage Special @itvmlshow 8pm Tue. If uv questions to suggest for me to put to him, especially based on ur circumstances (remember it's a practical not political show) pls reply with them.
Tin-eared airport bosses want to increase pollution there by 60% amid public fury over environmental harm
At a time when it is vital that people fly less often London’s Gatwick airport submits plans to increase capacity by 60%. Are people really that indifferent to the fate of our life on this planet? https://t.co/JTIyp5nVBN
Minister for disabled people refuses to discuss his disability action plan with them
The minister for disabled people has been criticised by one of his own MPs for failing to consult properly with disabled people’s organisations over his forthcoming disability action plan. https://t.co/tQJ1uttGZ1
— Disability News Service (@johnpringdns) July 7, 2023
Perhaps Tom Pursglove doesn’t want disabled people to object to the plan to close railway ticket offices?
Perhaps there are a multitude of other omissions in his plan that he doesn’t want to allow under the spotlight until it has been rubber-stamped?
Whatever the excuse, this is unacceptable behaviour from any government. Nobody’s life should be changed by the government if they haven’t had a chance to participate in the process.
“Nothing about us without us,” remember?
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A reminder: Thames Water wants Keir Starmer and his Labour Party to support their decision to put money into shareholder dividends rather than into stopping them from pumping millions of tonnes of faeces and other sewage into our once-clean rivers and coasts. He probably will support them because he’s a right-winger who supports profit for the few over the well-being of the many.
Were you shocked to learn that a privatised water firm that is in deep financial trouble has approached the Labour Party to help it avoid being re-nationalised?
Liv Garfield, the boss of water giant Severn Trent, is trying to bring a taskforce of utility bosses together with the Labour party in a bid to head off the threat of nationalisation.
In an email sent to other utility CEOs which she describes as “sensitive” and “highly confidential”, the £4 million a year Garfield [writes] “One idea we believe might be attractive to the Labour leadership is re-purposing utilities and utility networks into a new breed of declared social purpose companies – companies that remain privately owned, who absolutely can (and should) make a profit, but ones that also have a special duty to take a long-term view.”
Garfield, one of a handful of female bosses of FTSE 100 companies, warns her colleagues: “The Labour leadership is aware we are soft testing various ideas but have asked us to keep it highly confidential so please don’t forward this email.”
The email seems to include comments from a Labour representative in support of Ms Garfield’s ideas.
In other words:
Labour has been caught plotting with a water giant CEO in a bid to stop nationalisation.
This comes as private companies spew out sewage in our waterways and tell us to foot the bill. Shameful.
Labour is in the pocket of big bosses and will never nationalise water.
We will 💧
— Breakthrough Party 🟠🌤️ (@BThroughParty) June 30, 2023
Putting aside the Breakthrough Party’s electioneering, we can see that the sentiment about Labour is correct. If you want further proof, consider the following “before/after” video clip showing Keir Starmer lying about nationalisation, not once but twice:
Keir Starmer running to be Labour leader: I will nationalise water
Let’s pause for a moment to remind ourselves of why the privatised water firms are facing possible renationalisation. First, the pollution:
This river belongs to everybody!@thameswater should be extracting poo and leaving the profit, not pumping in poo and extracting profit!
If enough people are cheesed off about this, then I think that people will demand that ownership of @thameswater is returned first to the… pic.twitter.com/qq3odMOeua
In a little over three decades, Thames Water, the biggest water and sewerage company in England, serving 15 million people, has transformed from a debt-free public utility into what critics argue is a privately owned investment vehicle carrying the highest debt in the industry.
Over those years … its executives and the shareholders and private equity companies who own it have presided over decades of underinvestment, aggressive cost-cutting and huge dividend payments.
The symptom of these decades can be seen in the scale of sewage discharges, the record leaks from its pipes and the state of its treatment plants – which are now at the centre of a criminal investigation by the Environment Agency into illegal sewage dumping and a regulatory inquiry by Ofwat.
Privatisation – which was intended to lead to a new era of investment, improved water quality and low bills – turned water into a cash cow for investment firms and private equity companies.
Charts accompanying the article show how Thames Water has built up £14.3bn of debt, while at the same time handing out dividends totalling £7.2bn. One owner, Australian “infrastructure asset management firm” Macquarie, took out £656m in dividends in 2007, when profits were a fraction of that at £241m.
How could it produce any statement of profit at all? Easy: borrowing. Money for equipment and day-to-day running was borrowed while the cash paid in bills went into shareholder bank accounts (as described by economise Richard Murphy here).
It is this situation that Labour is being asked to support – and which, from the tone of Ms Garfield’s email, it does.
Should we be shocked? No. We should not even be surprised. Labour is not the socialist, “for the many, not the few” endeavour it was intended to be when it was founded. In just three short years, Keir Starmer (the serial liar – as demonstrated above – who is currently in charge of that party) has perverted it into the opposite of what it was.
Where Labour would once have been expected to suspend anybody suspected of sexualising children while police investigate, Starmer’s party puts them up for election:
(Odd, that. When This Writer stood for a council election, my Labour membership was suspended within days of the poll, after the party accepted entirely false claims that I was an anti-Semite. Clearly, the party currently runs a “one rule for us, another rule for you” system.)
Labour under Starmer is not opposed to racism. In fact, some say its MPs and leaders are themselves avid racists. Consider the claim against Jess Phillips, below – who apparently whipped up a dogpile on Twitter against the head teacher of a school that isn’t even in her constituency:
— Katharine Birbalsingh (@Miss_Snuffy) July 1, 2023
And Starmer’s Labour, while still claiming to be a “broad church” that accepts a wide range of political views, is actually becoming more narrow-mindedly right-wing all the time by purging its membership of anybody whose political views are to the left of – well, Mussolini, it seems.
After years of focusing on more overtly left-wing members, Starmer’s leadership has started on what are deemed to be “soft left” figures – causing a stir yesterday (Saturday, July 1, 2023) when Neal Lawson of the think tank Compass was targeted for removal. He wrote about it in The Guardian:
They wrote coldly to tell me that back in May 2021, I’d committed a crime: retweeting a Lib Dem MP’s call for some voters to back Green candidates in local elections, accompanied by my suggestion that such cross-party cooperation represented “grownup progressive politics”.
Why did I say that, why on earth am I facing expulsion for it, and what might it mean for the future of our politics? I said it for two reasons. First, because the progressive majority in our country is thwarted by the electoral system. Votes on the right go almost exclusively to the Tories, but the progressive vote is always split between Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. Under first past the post (FPTP) the Conservatives win on a minority of the vote, again and again. Cooperation between progressives just makes sense.
Governing with others is better than losing alone… So, why use an uncontentious tweet from over two years ago to move to expel me?
The reason is that the party machine is no longer run in this long and rich spirit of pluralism. It has been captured by a clique who see only true believers or sworn enemies.
In fact, Labour has a standing rule that no party member may voice support for another party. Members on the left have been expelled for that since before Mr Lawson made his tweet. And This Writer has little sympathy because the fact that he did publish such a tweet suggests he may have thought he was one of the privileged clique at the top who are above the rules.
In any case, Mr Lawson doesn’t need (and probably wouldn’t want) my support to deal with this. He’ll have enough support from others – reluctant though it may be in some cases:
Obviously I'm going to stand up for any of the soft left who are now being purged by the Labour Party. But it'd be a whole lot easier if they'd stood up for Marc Wadsworth, Jackie Walker and the rest of us when we were being purged. And if they had, maybe they'd be safe now.
“First they came for the socialists…” as Martin Niemoller wrote about the Nazis.
Well, now they have come for Neal Lawson, and he’s lucky that the socialists are still around to speak out for him, even though the party leaders he has supported until now may wish the situation to be otherwise.
And this is the reason the privatised water companies who have vandalised our rivers and coasts are turning to Keir Starmer for help: they see in him a kindred spirit – a fellow vandal.
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