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Yet another poll suggests Burnham surge is a damp squib - SNP dominant in Scottish subsample
Scotland immune to Burnham effect? SNP buoyed by stellar subsample result in first poll of new era
Andy Burnham's plan to rip up the Barnett Formula means he is ripping up Better Together's "Vow"
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Andy Burnham’s “King in the North” schtick is the latest camouflage of convenience for a chameleon politician. As perhaps his first act as Prime Minister, he will deliver a financial bailout to Thames Water.
ReplyDeleteThe problems of Thames Water are many and varied. Profit gouging for shareholders and eye watering remuneration packages for the Board Room are part of the story but not all.
To be fair to Thames Water, they had a very real, material problem to address (which they singularly didn’t as investment to maintain infrastructure was sacrificed for profits). They had to deal with increased population, increased population density and crucially increased urbanisation.
As Green belt was eaten up and folk replaced the grass in their gardens with AstroTurf and decking, and their gravel driveways with monoblock, there was massive increased and accelerated runoff of storm water which defeated the sewers and water treatment plants which led to increased discharge of untreated sewage to rivers. As the surface area of soak aways decreases, the storm water runoff issue increases exponentially.
Bailing out Thames Water won’t solve that issue (and it’s a subsidy to the SE of England to be borne by all of us).
If Burnham wants to address the root causes of the problem, he should let the system fail. The concentration of population, wealth, finance and political power in the SE of England has been ongoing since Thatcher came to power. Burnham could be forgiven for holding a press conference where he states that the legacy of nearly 50 years of government policy prioritising the status of the SE of England is beyond his powers to rectify.
If folk in London can aford to pay a seven figure sum for a glorified bedsit which the Estate Agent describes as a “compact and bijou studio apartment”, then they can afford to pay for the true costs of their water and power. If they can’t, they can pack up and move to somewhere more affordable.
The cheerleaders of free market and laissez-faire economics didn’t shed a tear when the folk of Consett, Corby, Motherwell and many other places were thrown to the wolves. Folk in Consett literally packed their few valuable possessions into suitcases and walked away from their homes.
If our political and media class start bleating about negative equity in London and the SE of England, we should remind them of the totem of their all important free market.
Good item, James. Andy B sounded completely lacking in awareness when he said that people in Dundee feel as remote from Holyrood as they feel from Westminster. Just another clueless politician confidently spouting nonsense about Scotland.
ReplyDelete644 AM Irvine no more, Grangemouth no more ..... good post. Brits as they like to be called need Scotland and Cymru- for their resources be it water, gas, oil, fishing, agriculture, electricity but dont give a monkees for anything else. They are scavengers.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it might help if we actually had a free press? Little is known of Burnham other than the "fact" that he nationalised Manchester's buses. But of course, he did no such thing, as the buses are simply franchised. News outlets abound with this misinformation on buses. Surely this is a co-ordinated press?
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