Tag Archives: waterway

In 13 years, this is the only growth the Tories have given us

At last the UK’s Conservative government report genuine, exponential growth!

Needless to say, it’s not the kind of growth that any of us would want. Here’s Feargal Sharkey:

And the pollution that gives rise to such disease is still taking place, despite the penalties that are being applied to the private water companies responsible:

This is the reason Brian May, bless him, was mistaken in his own recent intervention. Here it is:

He reckons regulation needs to be properly applied to the private water companies – but this misses the point: it is.

The problem is that the companies’ bosses have realised that it is cheaper to keep polluting and pay the fines than it is to implement system improvements that will allow the full processing of sewage and thereby the purification of our waterways.

They have also realised that the government is unlikely to increase those fines to such a degree that it would be wiser to carry out the work. Either the privatised companies would simply pass on the cost to their customers, or they would dare the government to put them out of business – because what would happen then?

Water companies are monopolies, whether the government admits it or not – operating on a geographical basis. And no matter what happens, someone has to provide the service.

So these businesspeople have us all over a barrel.

The only other alternative is for the government to pay for improvements with public money. But part of the point of privatisation was for improvements and modernisation to be funded from private investment.

So we come to the only logical solution: re-nationalisation.

And the problem with that is, nobody in charge of either of the UK’s two main parties wants to bring water back under public control.

It isn’t too expensive – governments can create the money to pay off the executives and shareholders. There’s no inflationary pressure either, if the government doing it taxes the cost back from, say, the rich (who took £700 billion for nothing during the pandemic, remember).

But, again, nobody in charge of the UK’s two main parties wants that cash back.

That’s all it is – a matter of will.

We simply need to put somebody in government who is willing to do what is needed.

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Sewage spills continue as water bosses remain unaccountable

As Ofwat remains toothless, water companies continue to pollute the UK indiscriminately.

This Writer was on a hospital run across two counties yesterday, and I crossed several rivers on the journey. It was a warm day and the smell of sewage near those waterways was almost enough to stun me, let alone harm wildlife living nearby.

Here are the latest updates, courtesy of pop star turned environmental campaigner Feargal Sharkey:

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Therese Coffey tries to blame LABOUR for the Tory sewage scandal

Rivers of Sh*t: Boris Johnson couldn’t be bothered to think about the details of his Brexit, and now the UK is suffering shortages of materials including those used to clean sewage. So partially-cleaned and harmful crap is going directly into our rivers.

Thursday, February 23 was a bad day for Environment Secretary Therese Coffey.

Not only did she suggest that we all eat turnips as a replacement for vegetables (and tomatoes) that are currently running short in supermarkets – causing a shortage of turnips as well, but she tried to pass the stink over the pumping of sewage into the UK’s waterways off as Labour’s fault:

Indeed.

It’s possible that everything Coffey said about Labour was true – that party, in office, should have re-nationalised the water companies when it had the chance – but didn’t.

But the current issue, of raw sewage being pumped into rivers and the sea, is entirely of the current Tory government’s creation.

Coffey knows that – or should. It is pathetic that she should try to pull the wool over our eyes in such a blatant manner.

On a related matter:

PFAS stands for perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, a family of thousands of human-made substances known as “forever chemicals” because they are extremely persistent and will not break down in the environment for thousands of years.

I suppose Coffey would blame this spread of toxic chemicals into a protected river, in 2023, on the Labour government of 1997-2010 as well?

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Is this the reason our rivers and beaches are overflowing with sewage? [VIDEO]

Tory Britain: “one of the most effluent nations in the world” as Dr Louise Raw put it when she tweeted this image.

An informative video clip from the Express? Will wonders never cease?

The big question is why nothing is being done about this.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Tory U-turn over ‘Rivers of Sh*t’ ‘doesn’t come close’ to what is needed

Minehead beach: you might be more sensible than to allow your child to play in the human waste that you see here – but other people clearly aren’t.

We all breathed a sigh of relief and rejoiced that we could once again smell the roses after the government announced its new plan to progressively force water companies to reduce the amount of sewage in our rivers and in the sea. Didn’t we?

No. Here’s our water quality correspondent, Feargal Sharkey:

He also had an answer to Tories like This Writer’s MP, Fay Jones, who claimed that the public would be forced to pay for improvements to the UK’s sewers:

Hear, hear!

On a side note, you have to agree with Omid on this, don’t you?

But what did the water bosses have to say about this?

They weren’t available to be interviewed, of course, because none of them live in the UK!

Our water companies are run by the governments of eight other nations: Singapore, Australia, Kuwait, Canada, Norway, UAE, Qatar and Malaysia.

That’s pretty close to it! Of course, the government has said that it will require the water companies to clean up their act (and our waterways) progressively but it is extremely unlikely that this will happen unless the Treasury provides some stimulus.

In the meantime, we have this:

And this:

Dead seagulls have already been spotted at Southend, I believe. This is one of the top beach resorts serving Londoners, remember.

Also this:

The worst part is that a family was letting their child paddle in the Minehead sewage. People really don’t know any better than not to play with the brown stuff. How many people will catch cholera before the government gets the message?

Well, the Tories wanted a workforce that was less educated than they were, and judging from Boris Johnson, that was setting the bar very low indeed.

At least the satirists have been sharpening their tools. Here’s a selection of their offerings – these are the tools we should use to remind the Tories of their big mistake:

This is particularly good from national treasure Pam Ayres:

And what has actually been done to stop the dissemination of sewage into our waterways, land, crops, food animals and dinner plates in the meantime?

Absolutely nothing.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Tory ban on foreign mineral water means we must drink our own that is polluted with sewage

This is the plan by Boris ‘Rivers of Sh*t’ Johnson, isn’t it?

It certainly seems suspicious that, having ensured that so much water in the UK is undrinkable, the government should order that we cannot have bottled water from a foreign country, meaning that we can only drink the stuff they’ve filled with sewage.

And that is what has happened. The ban will be enforced from January 2022:

The decision was taken before the Lords forced the government to promise that it will force water companies to make a “progressive reduction” in the sewage it dumps in rivers, remember.

Ah, but now we have that promise, don’t we?

Yes, but it doesn’t mean much.

Remember Fay Jones, This Writer’s MP, who was caught banging on about the cost of improvements to the “Victorian sewerage system” earlier?

She said in the same tweet that the government was already working to reduce discharge from storm overflows. You can see that at the start of the clip below. The rest of it is worth watching too.

So the government had claimed that Brexit would make it possible to improve standards, and has gone back on that claim. And now mouthpieces like Ms Jones are saying water companies would pass costs on to customers if forced to maintain health standards.

Hmm…

My understanding, when the utilities were privatised back in the 1980s, was that they would be cheaper for the country’s taxpayers because they would use part of their profits to maintain health standards and there would be no extra cost to customers.

It seems to me that, with a government formed by the same party that was responsible for the privatisation now saying the opposite, this organisation may clearly be seen to have been duplicitous – either then or now. The Tories lied to us.

Here’s another clip explaining the current situation:

Yes, it also reflects badly on the water companies. But it seems to me that they are simply acting according to the conditions on which they were sold these going concerns. So the responsibility falls back onto the Tory government.

The rivers are full of human waste now. The ban on foreign mineral water starts in January. And the water companies certainly won’t bother to change their working practices significantly before it begins.

So I hope you’ve all got your water purifiers installed and in full working order.

And this means that, yes indeed, the chances of any future environmental action are slim – not just with regard to rivers, but also from any decisions made at the imminent COP26 climate conference, that is being run by the Conservatives.

They haven’t ensured our rivers will remain free of sewage; they won’t do much (if anything) to improve that situation; so we may conclude that they’ll do nothing to end the threat of climate change.

That’s a shame, because COP26 is being touted as our last chance to avoid climate armageddon. The fact that it is being hosted by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives heralds doom for the whole world.

That is not a joke or hyperbole.

Meanwhile, we have the current situation, as immortalised in satire…

… in images that should stay with us forever (but probably won’t)…

… and in profits for the water companies (together with the Tory Party that receives their donations):

The moral of the story?

Money talks to Tories, in a language they understand better than survival.

AFTERWORD: Following a query from fact-checking organisation Full Fact (over Facebook links to this article) I am happy to clarify that manufacturers of EU mineral water may continue to export it to the UK if they renew their accreditation under UK rules by January 7, 2022.

This information is available to readers of the article who click on the link to the government announcement, above, and then read the government letter. If this context is not clear, the fault lies with the Tory government for ignoring this fact in favour of propaganda promoting UK mineral waters.

But of course, this raises a further question. EU mineral water producers may certainly apply for UK accreditation, but why should they bother?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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