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And I will say less investment went in. Easy to just make stuff up isn't it.
So it would appear.
However I can back up my statement, can you?
Investment in the industry has roughly doubled since privatisation in 1989, rising drastically in the 1990s
Offwat https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/investment-in-the-water-industry/
Whilst, as I have said, I am all for nationalisation, remove the profit, dividends and bonuses and you still won’t get the things people want unless money is found that the current companies don’t have access too.
The water utilities in Scotland are publicly owned and the environmental performance there is not significantly different to England and Wales
172% inflation since 1989 and when they say investment has doubled they fail to state they've corrected for inflation as they do with other figures so presumably they haven't. That ofwat report is as clear as sewage and smells as bad. Self congratulatory misleading bollocks is what I made of that report. Especially when they add
"So, the nature and focus of investment has changed, not the level of investment."
I'm highly sceptical about any stats on bathing directives. I started with Welsh Water doing just that. I saw the pattern and frequency of monitoring changing to produce ever better figures rather than the improving figures resulting from capital works. The main influence was run-off from farmland. Having not noticed any significant reduction in intensive agriculture (on the contrary) or radical changes in techniques I can't see why results would have dramatically improved other than by modification to sampling points and timing of sampling. The early 80s results were an excellent represeantation of real bathing water quality, by the late 80s a little less so and now I'm sceptical.
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It doesn't matter if investment has doubled. It's clearly not enough.
We have to deal with institutional rubbish like this on Ofwat's page.
Prior to privatisation the industry was competing for investment with everything else a government could spend money on; education, health, welfare. This meant that investment was constrained and so water quality was relatively poor, beaches had real issues with sewage and leakage was a significant issue.
This is horse-shit of the highest order and frankly just helping the case for privatisation along rather than being a fact.
Government's choose to under-invest to make a case for privatisation
There will absolutely never be a bigger investor than the the government. They just don't want you to believe that is the case. Why borrow money from the private sector in the first place when you can fund anything you want to? It's just dumb.
County gains an asset and maybe we could get some new reservoirs too?
It's all part of the Thatcher legacy.
Regulators are an impotent waste of time. If we had governments with the political will we could fix all these problems.
(Also at the same time water companies have extracted 82bn - so they might have put in 5-6bn a year but if it comes out the other end and put on our bills - it's inefficient. Our bills are proof.)
Financing dividends with debts is also more proof that they're not fit for purpose either.
I'm highly sceptical about any stats on bathing directives. I started with Welsh Water doing just that. I saw the pattern and frequency of monitoring changing to produce ever better figures rather than the improving figures resulting from capital works. The main influence was run-off from farmland. Having not noticed any significant reduction in intensive agriculture (on the contrary) or radical changes in techniques I can't see why results would have dramatically improved other than by modification to sampling points and timing of sampling. The early 80s results were an excellent represeantation of real bathing water quality, by the late 80s a little less so and now I'm sceptical.
Well we can discuss bathing water sampling until the cows come home and never reach a useful conclusion but…
The standards in the current bathing water regs were brought in by the revised BW directive. They were put into Welsh law in, I think, 2013 and introduced significantly tighter standards. This forced Dwr Cymru Welsh Water to invest a load of cash in the networks to reduce spills. The impact of the investment was visible in the results and the measured water quality at some bathing water beaches was significantly better as a consequence. In short things have moved on a load since the 80s.
In terms of sampling… research work done in Wales and other locations has shown that bathing water quality varies widely over a single day (up to 3 log order) and is influenced by multiple factors beyond simple pollution inputs. As such, it is arguable that taking spot samples, even to build up today’s 4 year rolling dataset, has its limitations. But right now, the sampling protocol prescribed by the current regs is more stringent than the previous monitoring regime.
And I will say less investment went in. Easy to just make stuff up isn't it.
So it would appear.
However I can back up my statement, can you?
Investment in the industry has roughly doubled since privatisation in 1989, rising drastically in the 1990s
Offwat https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/investment-in-the-water-industry/
Blimey, that's impressively disingenuous even by stw standards, if I may be so bold to suggest.
What was being discussed was your claim that more investment went into wastewater management because it was privatised than would have done had it remained publicly owned.
Kerley's point was that you can't prove that claim, he doesn't believe it and nor do I. And you still haven't proved it. As kerley says, it's easy to make up stuff.
OK, maybe - but why does a bad "fix" after 1989 lead to weird denialism about the huge problems that existed around water before 1989?
You'll need to redirect your question to someone who believes there were no problems before privatization.
Then your "answer" above is a non sequitur to the question. 🤷♂️
Prior to privatisation the industry was competing for investment with everything else a government could spend money on; education, health, welfare. This meant that investment was constrained and so water quality was relatively poor, beaches had real issues with sewage and leakage was a significant issue.
This is horse-shit of the highest order and frankly just helping the case for privatisation along rather than being a fact.
Government's choose to under-invest to make a case for privatisation
Underinvestment in water started *decades* before the water system in England & Wales was privatised. Much of the water mains around my way are still Victorian cast iron! It wasn't just 10 years of underinvestment under Thatcher (which certainly happened - see 2.5 below!) as a pretext for and prelude to privatisation. You think Jim Callaghan chose to underinvest in water to make the case for its privatisation? Maybe Macmillan? Attlee...?
The origins of much of the existing water infrastructure in the United Kingdom can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century ... The most important change came about through the Water Act 1973, under which ten Regional Water Authorities (RWAs) were established ... the assets inherited by the RWAs—many originating in the nineteenth century—had suffered decades of neglect, with renewals and repairs hampered by the previously dispersed nature of ownership and by under-investment.
HISTORIC UNDER-INVESTMENT
2.5. The 1970s and 1980s were challenging economic times for the water industry. The Treasury exercised strict controls over public sector borrowing and spending, which resulted in cuts in the industry's capital expenditure. Between 1955/56 and 1973/74 capital spending by the water industry had tripled in real terms, but in 1979 the Government instructed the RWAs to reduce planned investment by 11.2 percent and to increase the proportion of capital expenditure financed out of current surplus. By the 1980s, investment had fallen to between a quarter and a half of what it had been in real terms ten years previously.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldsctech/191/19106.htm
Since the discussion on water industry ownership has now got completely bogged down on the topic of "investment" it is probably worth pointing out that it has nothing at all to do with the reason that the current government won't renationalise water.
The only difference between the Green Party's and the Labour Party's positions on the issue is that Sir Keir Starmer claims that water industry nationalisation would be 'too costly and time-consuming' and Zack Polanski claims that is nonsense.
Starmer has never made the claim nationalisation would lead to less investment, in fact has anyone? So why is it being discussed at such lengths?
Why not focus on the excuse the government is actually giving? Because the excuse is too ridiculous?
Then your "answer" above is a non sequitur to the question. 🤷♂️
I hadn't thought that my answer was difficult to understand, but there you go.
Renationalise or not… I’d vote for it but it’s a side issue as far as I can see.
Why? Because nationalising in itself will not bring around a step change in environmental protection. Significant increases in investment is also needed as well as a change in urban and suburban planning and a load of other stuff pretty complex stuff.
Right now we seem to be heading towards even more extreme concentrations of wealth in the already super wealthy. The rest of us will be left behind and we people will soon stop worrying about bathing water quality as they start to worry about more immediately pressing issues. We need to sort out growing inequality more than we need to renationalise the water industry.
We need to sort out growing inequality more than we need to renationalise the water industry.
If only we could figure out a way of how a government might perhaps multitask eh?
Something along the lines of dividing the government into different departments with different responsibilities and different Secretary of States.
Still, perhaps there's plenty of time to deal with just one issue at a time. It won't be for another four before Labour loses a general election.
If only we could figure out a way of how a government might perhaps multitask eh?
Do both, that’s cool. But inequality is the big issue. If you don’t sort that you can renationalise if you want… but it won’t help very much.
If you make renationalising one of your big manifesto pledges yet don’t deal with inequality and don’t sort out the myriad other issues that are holding back progress in environmental protection, it will only come back to haunt you when the newly renationalised water utility fails to make the required progress.
For many people it's a totemic issue, not a strategic one.
Pure opinion but the leadership of Zack Polanski, Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali are the most straightforward bunch of people I've seen communicate in ages.
A far cry from the authoritian, confused and inept mess of the Labour leaders.
I've absolutely no idea whether they will have much reach but it's definitely a positive bunch with much to say.
Labour feel like out of touch dinosaurs against this backdrop. Ghosts of Tory thinking.
Pleased Polanski has done the message of hope video too.
Polanski is certainly making a big splash. memebership growing and column inches way up.
Right now we seem to be heading towards even more extreme concentrations of wealth in the already super wealthy. The rest of us will be left behind and we people will soon stop worrying about bathing water quality as they start to worry about more immediately pressing issues. We need to sort out growing inequality more than we need to renationalise the water industry.
At last someone gets it. It seems that Polanski has been paying attention to what Gary Stevenson and Prof Richard Murphy have been saying about wealth inequality and its dangers to our society and he seems to understand that addressing inequality and getting government to govern for all the people instead of the 1% is key and without it you can't effectively address environmental issues. Having said that I think its entirely possible to address inequality and sort out the water industry at the same time.
Nationalising water and energy, is a double hit to control bills and meet environmental needs. Any politician still pretending a nations energy and water needs can be met by the market has zero environmental credibility at best, and in reality is working to damage the environment for the greed of the few.
Polanski is certainly making a big splash. memebership growing and column inches way up.
He is known for making things grow through the force of personality...
Is that in reference to his growing column inches and his sexuality, or when Zack hit hard times and was trying to keep abreast of things?
Either way I approve ☺️
Having said that I think its entirely possible to address inequality and sort out the water industry at the same time.
It absolutely is. Political will.
Too much for the ****ing useless current Labour government to handle.
They're too busy warning people not to protest and arresting grannies.
So much for the cost of living eh?
Tough choices to come.
Is this bloke playing the populist vote in British politics? 🙄
Is this bloke playing the populist vote in British politics?
isnt this the idea of a political party? to gain support and enact you policies? ie become more popular?
if his views are populist surely all parties would be saying it? (which they are not)
isnt this the idea of a political party? to gain support and enact you policies? ie become more popular?
if his views are populist surely all parties would be saying it? (which they are not)
Yes, being popular is the first step to get voted in, but once they get an overdose of own "great" that's where they will start to disengage from reality.
ZP on question time tonight.
Might watch that one.
Are we going to have a Muslim telling a jew to support the genocide in Gaza?
Surely he has earned his Zack! Polanski! exclamation marks by now, what happened to good old stw tradition?
As the thread starter I knew nothing about this.
ZP on question time tonight.
Might watch that one.
Jeez, the BBC eating a bit of humble pie? Given that they refused to include him in Kuenssberg's show not once but twice. Although I fully expect him to be given an unduly rough ride on account of him being somewhat lefty.
I'm genuinely giving up on British politics. The Labour party was voted in as a clean slate after the sleaze, ineffectiveness, increasingly right-wing and frankly unpleasant politics the Tory governments had descended to. Instead, they've come in and want to curb free speech and right to protest even more than the Tory loons, they've enacted Theresa May's personal project policy of age controls on internet content, they've done nothing about water companies and bankers' bonuses, and frankly they seem determined to crush the electorate under a mass of anti-brown people policies both here and abroad.
Zack Polanski has a few themes I'm not totally sold on (something about anti-landlord-ism? Not read up on it); but honestly he's a breath of fresh air, and I only hope he can generate enough support to make the Greens a genuine political third party that makes a difference to the balance of Parliamentary power.
Are we going to have a Muslim telling a jew to support the genocide in Gaza?
(Not saying this is your view) Over the last week this is probably the thing that's stuck in my throat the most - the conflation by the government and the entirety of the political and media establishment of "jewish people" (general) with "supporting Israel" (the country and its actions) - not doing the latter means you're instinctively against the former; and the former are all, intrinsincally just through who they are, the latter.
If I was qualified to opine, I'd suggest it's kinda racist - but I'm not.
Surely he has earned his Zack! Polanski! exclamation marks by now, what happened to good old stw tradition?
As the thread starter I knew nothing about this.
It is a tradition started over 10 years ago by MrWoppit [God Bless Him] in reference to Donald! Trump's! excessive use of exclamation marks! on social media!
I'm pretty impressed with him so far. It's a refreshing change to have a politician who talks like a human being rather than a robot or a demon in human skin.
We'll see how far he goes. I'm Labour by instinct but the current capture of it by status quo technocrats has left me hanging off the left hand fringes. I could be persuaded to vote Green if they don't do anything too luddite.
Private Eye are a bit more critical of him given his previous history as a politician. I think they are waiting to see if he has found his niche with the Greens and can do some good, but his history suggests that he was looking to be an MP and was willing to go with whoever would given him that chance.
Ah, good to know, I'd missed that - but picked up on the (possibly staged?) hypnotic boobs thing.
For me the thing is that right now it's all such a cesspit that anyone even halfway sensible is actually pretty appealing. So unless the Labour party properly defenestrate Starmer and various of his staff, Polanski's Greens are possibly up there with the Lib Dems for me
Private Eye are a bit more critical of him given his previous history as a politician. I think they are waiting to see if he has found his niche with the Greens and can do some good, but his history suggests that he was looking to be an MP and was willing to go with whoever would given him that chance.
To be fair, if you want to change things and no party aligns with your views on how things should be changed then joining a party and changing it to align with your views is a pretty good solution.
I'd rather have that than a politician whose first loyalty is to their party.
The way I read it, it was more his sense of entitlement and that a party should be glad to have him. That did not sound like the right kind of principles.
Is it this article?
If so then I think what we can conclude is that many LibDem politicians don't like him. I'm OK with that.
I see no problem with him changing party. And of course he's "driven"... party leaders don't get picked from a list of reluctant members. The charges of "self-publicist" ring true for his time up to being party leader. Now he looks look the best publicist for the party they have had in a long time. They're no longer invisible in the media. Is he to be trusted? He doesn't really need to be at this point. He's not really standing to be PM, at least not yet... his job is to build on the Green Party's election successes at local and UK level.
This comment in the above link makes the point concerning what really matters:
Even if Polanski were somehow a secret Clegg maniac hiding as a socialist he is not setting Green policies. That is their membership in a democratic process. His job as leader is to be an effective communicator and fight for those policies. And he's done well at that.
Because of the deeply undemocratic personal grip that leaders have in the Tory, Reform, and Labour, parties, people have a tendency to forget that isn't the norm in all political parties.
Polanski isn't in a position to change Green Party policies anymore than any other party member, although he can obviously use his position as leader as a platform to try to influence others.
His real job is to drag the Overton window back to the centre.
Polanski has a 'double whammy' approach: he believes and understands certain ideas and can articulate it in a debate.
Starmer can do neither.
The irony is that the Overton Window is of course by definition always in the centre.
With his own dog whistling and speeches about "incalculable damage" Sir Keir Starmer has now made attacks on immigrants and asylum seekers centre ground politics.
Starmer is also in the process of establishing a new centre ground on the issue of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Tories and Reform want to pull out of the ECHR whilst the Greens and the SNP, for example, want to remain in it and uphold its founding commitments.
As a centrist Starmer obviously takes a position between the two extremes arguing that the UK should stay in ECHR but simply ignore the restrictive stuff about human rights. This is where the new centre ground/Overton Window now is.
All this stuff about leaving the ECHR should send shivers through every single person in the UK - not be cheered. It's proper dystopian stuff.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1976264647046201656?t=jaVgk538KBgNHq9nhk-4jQ&s=19
Interesting movements.
Well the Tories appear to have received the much coveted and widely expected "conference bounce". In contrast Labour appeared to have achieved the previously totally unheard of "conference drop".
How completely useless is Sir Keir Starmer to have today made Labour as unpopular as Kemi Badenoch has made the Tories?
And the Green Party are only two points behind Labour!
I am not sure if Kemi Badenoch will manage to pacify her critics by pointing out that the next general election isn't for another 4 years but Sir Keir Starmer must feel spectacularly lucky that there wasn't a general election today.
How did Zack do on QT?
very competitive....a few overly aggressive moments taking stabs at the other parties, but that's part of the game i guess
had some very coherent answers i think, had a decent share of the air time.. .a few nicey nicey moments in contrast to Zia Yousef (apologies if mispelled) very cold, factual responses
First interview I had seen
the other parties took an opportunity to belittle the green party selling points as pie in the sky ideas
Yes I thought he could have composed himself a bit better but he's carrying a lot of weight and the same old shit is trudged out with rest of the panel.
Flip side he's passionate and our nasal robotic leader doesn't do this because he's got no connection with the people.
So many attack lines will stick from the establishment political mob. But Zack's lines will cut through. This is the secret to getting media coverage - they want people who are a bit inflamed. So I'm happy that's he's a bit angry.
It will signal him out above the suits.
Zia Yusuf is a pompous jerk. Citing so much economic rubbish. All the parties are aligned in cutting deficits now - it's an I'm alright jack approach - it needs pushing back so hard as their framing is skewed to benefit the wealthy.
Society keeps getting poorer so let's keep cutting society until it gets better. Dumb logic.
I could be persuaded to vote Green if they don't do anything too luddite.
They can't be any worse than the current shower who think that they can break encryption just a little bit to gain access to "our" stuff, or the requirement to prove adulthood through insecure third parties. If the greens are less luddite than this they're onto a winner.
The Economist, in amongst its shilling for key Middle East stakeholders, did have an interesting article last week or the week before about UK voting intentions; the key foundation being that Starmer is being a racist &&&&end to no avail, because Labour voters will never vote Reform, but will instead switch to other parties within the 'left'/ 'liberal' (relative) cohort - ie recent Labour voters may shift to Green, LibDem, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Your/My/Their Party; but are very unlikely to vote Tory, let alone Reform/ ReFarage/ Re-acist by any other name.
So Polanski's goal presumably is to put the Greens where they hold the balance of power in a left/liberal coalition, or where Labour tack somewhat liberal in response to their growing importance.
because Labour voters will never vote Reform,
Apart from all the ones that obviously have, Labour have lost support to reform, not to the same extent as the Tory's but it' not insignificant. Labour voters range across the spectrum, a lot on the trade union side, often people most closely linked with Labour's founding principles of being a party for working people are quite often pretty intolerant of people they see as outsiders, be that immigrants or people of a different social class or background. These are the Labour voters Reform has hoovered up, not the middle class social progressives that Corbyn typifies.
That said I agree that Starmer's weak aping of Reform / Tory messages isn't going to win anyone back. He can't win doing that so shouldn't even try for both moral and pragmatic reasons.
Not sure if these'll work, but they do rather demonstrate that no, Labour voters don't shift en masse to Reform
Labour voters range across the spectrum, a lot on the trade union side, often people most closely linked with Labour's founding principles of being a party for working people are quite often pretty intolerant of people they see as outsiders, be that immigrants or people of a different social class or background.
If that were the case how do you explain what has happened to these traditional Labour voters who voted Labour at the general election last year but you say are now backing Reform UK?
Why have they changed their support.....do they believe that under Starmer immigration has increased so much since they voted last year that they can no longer support the party which they have traditionally supported?
Personally I don't think immigration or the issue of asylum seekers are the reasons why some Labour voters have switched to Reform.
The is nothing surprising about the Labour's immigration and asylum policies which voters didn't fully expect, apart from the fact that they are more hostile towards immigrants and asylum seekers than expected, Labour is certainly not more liberal than voters had assumed.
If Reform couldn't win over traditional Labour voters in July 2024 over the issue of immigration and asylum seekers then there is no reason to assume they would able to a few months later.
However what will have come as a huge surprise to a great many Labour voters are issues such as maintaining the two-child benefits cap, a policy which is known to increase child poverty, that certainly wasn't expected by a lot of voters.
And then along comes Nigel Farage and, unexpectedly, pledges to abolish the two-child benefit cap, that obviously puts some voters in a dilemma.
Just to make matters even worse then some poncy self-righteous middle-class liberals tell them that voting Reform makes you a racist, thereby instantly boosting Nigel Farage's credibility in their eyes when he claims not to be a racist, and they perceive, quite rightly, that the term is used frivolously.
And then along comes Nigel Farage and, unexpectedly, pledges to abolish the two-child benefit cap, that obviously puts some voters in a dilemma.
If Farage really wants to hammer in the final nail he should promise to legalise recreational drugs. Then all the liberals who like a smoke or a line will have a serious dilemma on their hands. I think Polanksi has also promised legalisation but he has much less chance of being able to implement it. Sounds crazy but sometimes I wonder if a Green/Reform coalition might be a possibility? Obviously they're polar opposites on immigration and 'woke' issues but there is some common ground on economic stuff and they are both anti-establishment (or at least Reform pretend to be). It would sort of be a new vs old thing...
Actually no forget it, it's a bloody stupid idea! 😀
I put this up on our "Favourite UK" Government thread but I think it fits here nicely.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1976264647046201656?t=sebGubs13btJuGQRwL04GA&s=19
Key difference for me between Reform and Greens is the Greens want to fix problems whereas Reform just want to say stuff to pick up ex-Tory and ex-Labour numbers. Can't blame them for that strategy but like Labour they will not have a plan to govern.
The echos of painful pretend moderates like James O'Brien telling everyone "yes but you have to get power first.". So, lies are good in the process of getting elected. "But they will go left in power." Nope.
How's that panned out? Hasn't worked.
The whole thing has collapsed like vapourwear.
The echos of painful pretend moderates like James O'Brien telling everyone "yes but you have to get power first.". So, lies are good in the process of getting elected. "But they will go left in power." Nope.
I've been saying it for a while but Farage has been the single most influential UK politician this century. All before anyone in any of his parties ever even won a seat.
You absolutely do not have to get into power to fundamentally change the country. This is even more true in a FPTP system. All you have to do is start stealing votes and the party you are stealing votes from will chase you.
Starmer has shown that getting into power means nothing. In terms of influence on the UKs political direction, UKIP's 'achievements' eclipse anything Starmer or any other centrist could hope to do in a hundred lifetimes.
The way to break things, and the way to improve things, might not be the same. Farage’s aims and methods and allies might well happen to all line up to work his way. That doesn’t mean other aims, with similar methods, and fewer powerful allies, will also work. Good luck to Polanski though.