Apparently the Environmental Agency is cutting back on its own inspections of water and sewage pollution in rivers and the seaside. Instead its going to rely on the Water Companies own monitoring! You could not make it up!
Shifting accountability back downwards. 'do your ****ing job' is entirely appropriate here imho. Hammer the water companies if they break the rules. No government should have to police companies at such a low level tbh. But no, we've allowed a system to develop where the first person with any accountability is the secretary of state.
They are private companies...As long as they are making profits to give dividends to shareholders they are doing their jobs. Who cares about water purity anyway, it's not as if they had a monopoly selling a commodity that is vital to humans lives is it
I was chewing the fat about this with a couple of golfing mates yesterday. One reckons a good friend of his who works for Northumbria Water, says the only concern of the company is to send money to the Hong Kong/Chinese owners.
Cutting back. Not stopping. How much is it costing the taxpayer to do the water companies job's for them?
So just increase the fines to cover the cost rather than cut back. By cutting back we're accepting that it won't be regulated to a high enough standard.
We've got to get out of the habit of spending money to get absolutely nothing back for it. The water companies should be taking care of their own business.
They absolutely won't do that. What will happen is that standards drop. Most industries have an independent regulator of some sort. I don't see how this is any different.
Then you keep on fining, bigger and bigger, until it becomes a sensible financial decision to do so. We might as well nationalise it otherwise. Which I wouldn't be against.
Another day, another shameful headline ... ... let's blame the media Dominic Raab: inquiry into conduct expanded to include third complaint. New complaint against deputy prime minister received by Cabinet Office on Tuesday, says No 10. Fri 25 Nov 2022 12.59 GMT
It's the crackpots who believe that 'innocent until proven guilty' only applies to politicians they agree with that are the problem here. He's absolutely the kind of bloke I could see doing it. However that doesn't mean that he has. We live in a world where people feel like they're being bullied when they're being asked to do their job, so we'll have to wait and see. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's all the Brexiteers being accused, either.
To be fair it was the PM who's asked for the latest complaint to be added to the list. Just like the investigations into Johnson and Williamson this will just drag on and may never come to a real conclusion. Williamson puffed his chest out and claimed he'd do everything to clear his name but just scurried away. Whether he, Johnson and Raab are guilty or not isn't important, it's the general impression they give to the public that counts. It's just sad how the Government don't seem to be able get on with things without all this, not to mention Hancock deserting his post, etc. .i can't remember a time when politicians, of all colours, were so reviled ... we deserve better. It's just more mess after Johnson and Truss had a stab at it. Yes to a pint, anytime I'm up
Here's today's ... "A Conservative MP is appealing against a recommendation to suspend him from the House of Commons for breaking lobbying rules." "The cross-party committee found Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire breached lobbying rules "on multiple occasions and in multiple ways" and called for him to be suspended from the Commons for five days."
I have never trusted a Tory, but by God these present lot make their predecessors seem like philantropists by comparison. Rotten to the core.
If it's a frivolous appeal the punishment should be increased. Seems cut and dry but having been involved in a few things reported in the media, what we know may not be the whole story.
When it comes to lobbying it is a disgrace that has blighted Labour too, maybe more so. There were some pretty high profile cases under the last labour government. In my opinion it is a problem nobody from any political party has properly grasped. The punishment is too meagre for a start. I would ban them from politics. I would also make it impossible for past PMs, or high ranking ministers, to make money as a direct consequence of their role in British govt.