“The Tories are now going for outright gaslighting on water quality”
Image of a burst water main.
Michael Gove has faced fierce criticism for attempting to defend his party’s reputation on water pollution by claiming Britain’s water quality has got cleaner, while stating standards had got higher.
It comes as the Levelling Up Secretary scrapped EU-era water pollution restrictions for new homes, which will see taxpayers picking up the bill for pollution caused by housebuilders.
In an attempt to justify the latest Tory assault on environmental regulation, Gove insisted on Times Radio that rivers are ‘cleaner than they have been in the past’.
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Commentators accused Gove of lying and suggested the reason EU countries were spending less money on improving water supplies was because they do not need the vast scale of improvements required in the UK due to decades of water company mismanagement.
Singer and clean water campaigner Feargal Sharkey offered Gove some assistance in getting the facts straight.
“Let me help with that,” Sharkey replied. “Not a single river in England passes the chemical test, not one, they all fail, every single one.
“The ecology test? In 2009 25% of rivers were in ‘Good’ condition, 2016 fell to 14%, govt’s prediction by 2027 that will have fallen to 6%. Shame on you.”
Furthermore, recent analysis has suggested that illegal levels of toxic pollutant, like ammonia, released into rivers by water companies goes undetected due to a flawed ‘self-monitoring’ system by the Environment Agency.
Anthony Albanese continues to reject calls to make even a sanitised version of the assessment public
The Australian government is refusing to release its secret report on how the climate crisis will fuel national security threats and is also refusing to say when it was completed.
The government insists the date, too, is classified. The approach has sparked claims of a “cult of secrecy in Canberra”.
When it notified the United Nations of Australia’s stronger 2030 emissions reduction target, the government trumpeted its commitment to “an urgent climate risk assessment of the implications of climate change for national security”.
So far, however, the government has rebuffed calls to release the assessment – or even a sanitised public version, as it did with the defence strategic review.
In a new response to Senate questions on notice, the prime minister confirmed the ONI’s climate assessment was finalised “within the last 12 months”. But Albanese added: “The specific timing of the assessment board is classified.”
Five other questions from the Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, were answered with an identical response: “The content and judgments of the assessment are classified.”
ENVIRONMENT campaigners have told Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “stop playing politics” over London’s anti-pollution Ulez regulations.
Instead he should work with the capital’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and provide government funding for working people to replace polluting vehicles, Greenpeace said.
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Greenpeace UK clean air campaigner Paul Morozzo said: “Rishi Sunak has a legal obligation to cut harmful pollution levels across the UK.
“So instead of playing politics with such a vital issue, he should work with the London mayor to provide proper financial support for working people wanting to get rid of older, more polluting vehicles.”
Green groups enraged by ministers’ plans to ditch nutrient neutrality requirements for housebuilders have warned that it could lead some rivers to ‘total ecological collapse’
Feargal Sharkey, the pop star turned river campaigner, and Craig Bennett, head of the Wildlife Trusts, are among those who have blasted the Government over its plans.
Mr Bennett said: “They lied – this is a disgraceful move which undermines public trust in this Government.”
Meanwhile, the RSPB warned that removing the rules could lead to “total ecological collapse” for some rivers.
Ministers spent much of this year promising not to weaken environmental regulations in its efforts to scrap European regulations. Yet on Tuesday morning, it announced that nutrient neutrality laws would be ditched to unblock housing developments.
The right to protest is a distinctive feature of democratic, liberal societies. Yet the way in which many leading British politicians are currently talking about Just Stop Oil might make you think otherwise. Far from engaging with the issues at stake in these protests, politicians appear to be encouraging the wider public to ignore them or even oppose them.
Having seen their initial protests largely ignored, Just Stop Oil members have been making more disruptive (but non-violent) protests lately. They’ve been present at high-profile sports events like Wimbledon and the World Snooker Championships.
Policing minister Chris Philp dismissed the temporary delays caused to such events as “completely unacceptable”“. He argued that “the vast majority of the public are appalled by this very, very small, very selfish minority” and called on those not protesting to intervene.
With the UK government announcing new licences for oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, it’s clear that collective action that allows people to demonstrate their disagreement in peaceful ways is needed. In apparent contradiction to warnings about the climate crisis, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s commitment to the green agenda is wavering.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, has cancelled a plan to fund the transition from fossil fuels to green industries from the first day of government, should he win power. His response to criticism on this change was to turn on protesters.
He said: “The likes of Just Stop Oil want us to simply turn off the taps in the North Sea, creating the same chaos for working people that they do on our roads. It’s contemptible.”
Keir Starmer has deployed some divisive language about climate protestors of late.
Diverting the conversation
Referring to people defending the environment as a “minority” that acts against other citizens polarises society and marginalises protesters’ claims. It depicts people’s demands as somehow niche rather than amounting to a highly pressing threat to the majority.
One of the features of language is that when we talk, we only focus on one or, at most, a few aspects of a particular object or event. A lot will inevitably remain unsaid.
Still, when what remains unsaid is one of the most obvious elements of any given topic, what is missing becomes as informative as what was said. In this case, the focus on tactics instead of the substance of the protest betrays an unwillingness to engage with the climate crisis.
The government has put forward the home secretary Suella Braverman rather than the environment secretary to respond to the Just Stop Oil protests (itself a signal that they are seen as a public order issue more than anything else).
Braverman has referred to people protesting for environmental reasons as causing “havoc and misery”. Environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, meanwhile, doesn’t appear to have made any public statements regarding the matter.
To say that people are protesting and not mentioning the reason for the protest leaves the story incomplete. That’s something that rarely happens when UK politicians talk about protests in other countries.
But when talking about protests held in the UK, the debate looms over the disruption caused, as if the core message were secondary or even dispensable. It is only when the core message is ignored that politicians can refer to those acting in defence of human and nonhuman lives as “selfish”.
In the absence of meaningful political engagement, conversations about Just Stop Oil protests in the UK have strayed mainly into tactics and disruption at expense of their core message. However, politicians in democratic nations have a responsibility towards the electorate to engage properly with what citizens demand, not just with the way they make their claims heard.
