Rishi Sunak unveiled the long-awaited NHS workforce plan on Friday.
Asked by Ridge how the government would find the money, Barclay would only say it would be “through the Treasury” but refused to give any specifics.
Ridge responded: “What does that mean though? Is that more money for your department or are you going to have to find it from existing NHS budgets or is it borrowing? Where is it coming from?”
In a rambling answer, Barclay said: “This is additional money, it will be announced in the usual way through fiscal events.”
Ridge hit back: “I haven’t heard any new tax rises or spending cuts so I’m assuming it sounds like it must be extra borrowing.
Lindsey German on … [Keith Starmer] , the establishment’s friend …
The fate of Thames Water should be the end of the privatisation model pioneered by Thatcher in the 1980s. The major utilities and public companies were sold off at undervalued prices, their shares rapidly snapped up by big corporations and investors, prices for consumers rose rapidly, and profits went to shareholders, not to investment. That’s why today the common refrain about most parts of public life in Britain is that nothing works. And it is epitomised by Thames Water drowning in debt and likely to be taken back into public ownership temporarily.
But any form of nationalisation is going to be resisted to the bitter end, not just by the greedy privatised companies themselves, but by the Tories and the increasingly right-wing Labour Party under Keir Starmer. The cheek of the privatised companies was illustrated when the head of another, Severn Trent, convened a meeting of all the water firms to explicitly discuss ways of resisting nationalisation. And it’s no use going to the supposed regulators for help. As the Observer reported, ‘27 former Ofwat directors, managers and consultants [are] working in the industry they helped to regulate, with about half in senior posts.’ So a number of those regulating the industry have moved over to take lucrative positions in…. the privatised water companies.
While investors take the money and run, working class people are left with dire and expensive services that fail frequently because there is no investment. The water companies are publicly disgraced because of their dumping of sewage in rivers and seas, rather than invest in new treatment plants. But in London (and no doubt elsewhere) there have been several burst water mains, risking lives as they cause disruption sometimes for months, because of lack of investment. In the southeast of England, drinking water supplies have failed ‘because of the hot weather’, in what must be the lamest excuse from a company supposed to provide just that.
The answer from government and industry alike is that future investment will have to be paid for by us, through much higher bills and higher taxes. Already gas and electricity is beyond affordable for millions. But the energy companies will set the benchmark for other industries as profits are protected. No wonder nearly 13 million adults struggle to pay bills.
dizzy: Under Capitalism failing companies would normally go bankrupt so that the companies’ debts would be transferred to it’s creditors. This is not the case with the banks in the banking crisis of 2008, the energy companies failures ofrecent yearsand it looks like failing water companies now. Instead of the companies creditors shouldering the debt as part of the normal process, the poor public is instead burdened with it. This is great for the banks of course because it means that they can borrow without any risk of default, knowing that they will profiteer from the public regardless.
Craig Bennett says the way recent and current older generations have allowed environmental degradation will be viewed harshly by people in the future who will have to live with consequences that, in many cases, will be increasingly devastating. Image: A1Cafel Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic via wikimedia.
Future generations will look at current older generations in the same way older generations now view those who sent children up chimneys, according to the head of The Wildlife Trusts.
Craig Bennett says that the way that recent and current older generations have allowed environmental degradation – from climate change and nature degradation to plastic and air pollution – will be viewed harshly by people in the future who will have to live with consequences that, in many cases, will be increasingly devastating.
“Future generations will look back at current older generations and the way we treat the environment in the way that we now all look back at Victorians and wonder how on earth they could send children up chimneys,” Mr Bennett told i.
“I’ve no doubt that the way we treat the environment now, living in an utterly unsustainable manner will, before long at all, be seen for the true horror it is,” he said.
Madrid (AFP) – Climate activists said Sunday they had plugged the holes on 10 golf courses across Spain to protest at the sport’s excessive water usage as Europe lives through a severe drought.
Activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) filled in the holes under cover of darkness in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, the Basque Country, Navarra and the Balearic Island of Ibiza to denounce “the waste of water during one of the worst droughts Europe has ever suffered”.
“Golf has no place in a world without water,” said a statement from the group, which uses direct action to underline its warnings about the dangers to the planet.
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“Just one hole of a golf course consumes more than 100,000 litres of water a day to maintain the surrounding green,” XR said, citing figures from the Spanish NGO Ecologists In Action.
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Experts say parts of Spain — which is the world’s biggest exporter of olive oil and a key source of Europe’s fruit and vegetables — are the driest they’ve been in a thousand years, with the prolonged drought depleting reservoirs to half their normal capacity.
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Extinction Rebellion said it was part of a series of international protests “targeting the richest 1 percent of the population” through their golf courses, private jets and high-end cars to make clear that “the rich and their leisure activities that waste essential resources are a luxury we cannot afford”.
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It should be clear – if you bother to engage your brain – that the climate crisis is already affecting inflation and the cost of living crisis. Less precipitation (rain) and disrupted weather [patterns] through climate change mean less crops and increased prices in the supermarket for your fruit and veg, vegetable and olive oil, all those goods made from wheat, corn, beans, etc. The Capitalists will tell you it’s all because of the war in Ukraine. Bollocks, climate change is adversely affecting crops everywhere, Ukraine is not the only place growing crops. Climate change is affecting everyone now.
It’s also noted that the rich are specifically addressed targeted.
Related: Climate change crisis: Golf courses on borrowed time as Earth’s weather patterns become wilder
dizzy: This is not news to anyone who has been paying attention.
Image of Labour Party Dictator Keir Starmer.
KEIR Starmer’s Labour party has fallen under the control of a “right-wing, illiberal” faction undertaking a “witch hunt” against the left and others, a senior MP has said.
In a staggering intervention, MP for Dagenham and Rainham Jon Cruddas, said that moves to discipline and possibly expel Neal Lawson are a “disgrace”.
