IT'S SHIT, BUT AT LEAST WE DIDN'T GET FREE BROADBAND EH?

 

BRITAIN is not called plague island for nothing. We’re still in the grip of the Covid pandemic and now it would appear we might have a cholera outbreak after Tory MPs voted to allow water companies to keep pumping raw sewage into our coastal rivers.

On Wednesday evening the Tories succeeded in voting down an amendment designed to stop private water companies from dumping raw sewage into the UK’s waterways.

Lords Amendment 45 to the Environment Bill would have placed a legal duty on water companies in England and Wales “to make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.“ An amendment which any sane person would have thought should pass easily.

Last year, water companies dumped raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and coastal waters more than 400,000 times. This is despite us being legally obligated to treat sewage before it is released into waterways. But treating raw sewage costs money – and many have speculated that privatised water companies are simply dumping it into our waterways in order to make bigger profits. Not really speculation is it; these companies exist to make money for their shareholders so nothing is going to stop them from doing this other than laws to force them into doing the right thing.

As Hugo Tagholm, a spokesperson for the Surfers Against Sewage organisation, said  of the Tories’ opposition to the amendment: “Why wouldn’t they want water companies to have a legal obligation not to pollute our rivers and ocean with sewage, for example? It beggars belief and hardly shows a commitment to be the greenest government ever. It’s time for more ambitious thinking and law that builds protected nature back into public ownership rather than leaving it to the ravages of shareholder interests.”

This is yet another example of why water, along with other services, should be brought back into public ownership. It’s not difficult to fathom: if it’s cheaper to pump raw sewage into rivers and seas then that is what private companies will do. They don’t care about us, they care about money.

The public are justifiably angry about this and have been venting their anger online. But some MPs, notably David Davies MP for Monmouth, have condemned the public’s comments, stating on Twitter: “In a week when we should be thinking about the language we use online & the effect it has does the @UKLabour condone this kind of language from its activists?”

So what was the abuse he was responding to? Must have been pretty vile. It was simply this: “So @DavidTCDavies, you voted yesterday to allow water companies to continue dumping RAW SEWAGE in our rivers. But you told Monmouth THIS was what was killing the Wye and the Usk, and not the effect of intensive farming or poultry units near water courses”.

A question about the man’s hypocrisy without even calling him a hypocrite. Without abusing him in any way whatsoever. If he thinks this is abuse I doubt he’d last five minutes in Diane Abbott’s shoes. Or a multitude of other public figures.

Real abuse might be someone turning up at his home, and that of every other Tory MP who voted down this amendment, with a truckload of shit and dumping it in his front garden. Or even a wheelbarrowful. Not that I am advocating such a measure, obviously.

So, here we are, the Tories are dumping shit into our rivers, but at least we didn’t get free broadband eh?

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