Time to ‘level up’ on paying for pollution

It seems to me that you cannot be anything but against water companies’ practice of dumping raw sewage into the sea or our rivers.

Incredibly, 265 Tory MPs voted to allow the practice to continue. You won’t be surprised to learn that swimming in affected waters is not advised.

Apparently, the reason we’re going to continue to have to put up with this environmental crime is a matter of cost. Would it be unreasonable to think that shareholders, who’ve done pretty well in the past, should bear some of the cost?

No matter what our Chancellor says about “levelling up”, his budget shows that particular slogan to be clearly meaningless. Perhaps a little more taxing of the rich would help pay for the environmental cleaning necessary.

I wonder what the COP26 crowd, meeting in Glasgow, will think about this and our government’s other environmental shortcomings. Like the lunacy of cutting flight taxes and advocating more internal flights over rail travel. Did nobody tell the Chancellor that aircraft are great polluters?

The reason we’re going to continue to have to put up with this environmental crime is a matter of cost

It seems that the powers that be have long decided that lives are less important than the economy.

Rather than upset their wealthy friends and the hospitality industry by implementing ‘Plan B’, they’ve given the clear impression that, for all practical purposes, the dangers of the pandemic are largely over, despite rising hospitalisations and death rates.

As we look around, it’s clear that people have begun to believe this to be the case.

All praise is due to our council leader

Gerry Clarkson for declaring that we in the south east have suffered enough from the government’s mania for building here, which has meant we have been overwhelmed by unsightly flats and tediously dull housing estates.