They’d leave us all in the sewer

■ It is clear that at least one of the privatised water firms long ago gave up discharging sewage properly – and that is just the one we know about because if finally got a large enough fine of £90million to make the headlines in July.

Boris Johnson recently rewrote the history of the Miners’ Strike – claiming it was just Maggie Thatcher being “green” rather than a war on the unions and a beating for the working class.

No surprise then – as COP26 meanders into Johnson’s vague, bleary-eyed view – that he’s U-turned after protests from campaigners about the dumping of raw sewage into our rivers and seas (Mirror, October 27).

We’re now all used to wallowing in sewage thanks to this Tory Government.

Amanda Baker, Edinburgh

Why is it this Government has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the right thing? If it hadn’t been for campaigners protesting loudly about the disgusting levels of untreated sewage being discharged into our waterways then the water firms would have been given free rein. The fact is these private firms have neglected their duty to upgrade Britain’s crumbling sewage network while continuing to award massive payouts to shareholders and bosses.

The problem will continue until private firms are forced to act.

S Burgess, Bournemouth

Following the privatisation of the water companies by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory

government, profits that could have been used to rebuild the rundown Victorian infrastructure instead pay shareholder dividends.

According to Labour MP Richard Burgon, £56billon has been paid out to shareholders since privatisation, so there can be no excuses for not investing more.

Burgon is right to call for the renationalisation of these firms.

G Crawford, Gillingham, Kent

Another day, another Brexit delusion gone. We face food shortages as lorry drivers avoid the UK because of Brexit border delays, and now our water is at risk as sewage treatment chemicals cannot be delivered as easily. Project Fear is coming true before our eyes.

Kevin Sullivan, Swansea

Last week 265 Tory MPs voted down an amendment to the Environment Bill which would have prevented private water companies dumping raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and coastlines. They

have now been rightly shamed into a U-turn.

Water companies pumped untreated filth into the UK’s waterways over 400,000 times in 2020.

Surely, that makes it entirely legitimate to call the film of excrement and filth that floats around the coast and on the rivers, “Tory scum”?

Sasha Simic, North London

During times of heavy rainfall and flooding, sewage is released into rivers and the sea because otherwise it would contaminate fields, parks and pavements. This can be alleviated by rebuilding the whole sewage system in the UK but it will cost £660billion to do so.

K Reynolds, Cromer, Norfolk

The Tories’ rank hypocrisy has poisoned the well in more ways than one. And their flip-flopping on untreated sewage levels at the 11th hour doesn’t change the fact that they have turned this country into a proverbial cesspit.