INVESTMENT in Britain’s water utilities took a dive under Thatcher’s government. By 1980 investment by the regional water authorities dropped by two-thirds as the neoliberal straitjacket into which public expenditure was confined limited their ability to raise capital.
Contrast this to the present situation where the now privatised water companies have racked up millions in loans that seem more valued as a source of ready cash to pay bonuses, dividends and sweeteners than infrastructure investment.
The total debt burden of the dozen privately owned water companies stands at £65 billion which this year’s Commons report says is perilously close to the 70 per cent gearing at which commercial credibility is compromised.
Jo Maugham, director of the Good Law Project, which has been involved in legal challenges to a number of water companies, says: “The water sector has been poorly regulated for decades. It has been poorly regulated primarily by allowing water companies to over extract water from aquifers and reservoirs but also cash from operating entities within the water companies, and they’ve been allowed to underinvest in water infrastructure.”
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The logical case for public ownership is sometimes challenged by the suggestion that taking these failing enterprises into public ownership would be prohibitively expensive.
This is, of course, true if these enterprises were to offered for sale at the price their owners value them. A socialist government armed with a popular mandate and backed by a working class armed with both resolve and the necessary instruments of coercion might simply dispossess these rapacious incompetents and instruct them, individually and as a class, to find an alternative way of making a living freed of the responsibilities of ownership.
The United Kingdom has “almost certainly” had its hottest summer on record, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office.
The mean temperature across the country – which includes overnight lows as well as daytime highs – currently stands at 16.13C (61.03F) with less than a week of the season left to run.
This is well ahead of 2018, the previous warmest summer, which had a mean temperature of 15.76C (60.37F).
Temperatures during the rest of August would need to be four degrees below normal to prevent the record being broken – and this does not seem likely.
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Supporters rally ahead of a Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) May Day rally at City Hall on May 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
“As the US braces for more extreme heat, wildfires, and hurricanes, the Trump administration has been systematically defunding our communities to give handouts to billionaires,” said one organizer.
A broad coalition of progressive organizations on Thursday announced that they are uniting for a mass mobilization event aimed at taking on the billionaire class.
The upcoming Make Billionaires Pay marches, scheduled to occur nationwide on September 20, link together multiple crises—ranging from authoritarianism to the climate emergency to US President Donald Trump’s mass deportations—by pointing the finger at the ultra-wealthy oligarchs who have been supporting them all.
Candice Fortin, US campaign manager for climate action organization 350.org, said that billionaires are the connective tissue that links together the major problems currently facing the United States and the world.
“This isn’t a new story—billionaires have always prioritized profit over people,” Fortin said. “This is a system working exactly as it was designed, but now without even the pretense of justice. As the US braces for more extreme heat, wildfires, and hurricanes, the Trump administration has been systematically defunding our communities to give handouts to billionaires. They’re dismantling our democracy, attacking immigrants, and feeding the war profiteers.”
Tamika Middleton, managing director for Women’s March, also emphasized that today’s crises are closely linked together.
“Women, migrants, queer and trans people, and communities of color have long been at the center of overlapping crises, from climate disaster to economic injustice to gender-based violence and forced displacement,” she said. “These are not separate struggles; they stem from a global system designed by billionaires who exploit our struggles to maintain power.”
Organizers said that these planned actions will focus on advocating for taxing extreme wealth, ending Trump’s mass deportation program, and transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The marches are being convened by Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), Women’s March, Climate Defenders, and 350.org, and more than 100 other organizations have endorsed them so far.
The flagship march is set to take place in New York City at the same time the 2025 United Nations General Assembly will be taking place. Other marches are set to occur simultaneously across the country.
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A protester holds a sign during a “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump outside Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago on June 14, 2025. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
“If Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city,” said one senior Illinois official. “Chicago doesn’t bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators.”
US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago is the next city in his crosshairs for the kind of federal invasion and occupation currently underway in Washington, DC—a threat that sparked defiant pushback from officials in the Windy City and beyond.
“After we do this, we’ll go to another location, and we’ll make it safe also,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to his federalization of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops from the district and five Republican-controlled states.
“We’re going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next,” the president said, referring to progressive Brandon Johnson. “That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough.”
🚨MAJOR BREAKING: Trump threatens to deploy the U.S. MILITARY into Chicago – signaling the start of a nationwide crackdown.
This isn’t about safety – it’s about absolute power. Trump is turning American streets into occupied territory and test martial law. Your city is next. pic.twitter.com/TFqCoScKri
On August 11, Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency in Washington, DC, despite violent crime being down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966, according to official statistics. Critics have noted that Trump’s crackdown isn’t just targeting criminals, but also unhoused and mentally ill people, who have had their homes destroyed and property taken.
On Friday, Trump threatened to completely take over Washington and oust Mayor Muriel Bowser if she does not stop pointing out that crime has decreased in the city, which the president called a “crime-infested rat hole.”
In addition to Chicago, Trump has threatened to send federal forces into cities including Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco. Violent crime is trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels.
Unlike in Washington, DC, where home rule laws allow the federal government to take control of local police, Trump would face greater obstacles to intervention in other cities.
“President Trump can’t seize control of the Chicago police or any other local department outside of DC,” Congressman Raja Krishnamoorth (D-Ill.) noted on social media Friday. “The military cannot and will not patrol the streets of Chicago, and I will work with state and local officials to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
Mayor Johnson said in a statement that “the problem with the president’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound.”
“If the Trump administration is serious about driving down violence in Chicago, or anywhere else in America, then he should not have taken over $800 million away from violence prevention,” he added.
Other elected officials in Illinois also expressed anger and alarm at the prospect of a Trump intervention in Chicago.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued the following statement in response to comments President Trump made today threatening to deploy federal law enforcement to perform civilian law enforcement duties in the city of Chicago: tinyurl.com/5n89nt86
“After using Los Angeles and Washington, DC as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities,” Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said on X.
“Trump’s goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts—all to create a justification to further abuse his power,” the governor continued. “He’s playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with.”
“We don’t play those games,” Pritzker added. “Our commitment to law and order is delivering results. Crime rates are improving. Homicides are down by more than 30% in Chicago in the last year alone. Our progress in lowering crime has been made possible with [community violence intervention] programs that they’re defunding.”
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, a Democrat running for US Senate, said that “if Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city.”
“Chicago doesn’t bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators,” she added. “As a Black woman from the South Side, I can assure you… your political circus isn’t welcome here.”
Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) wrote on social media, “President Trump: You are not welcome in Chicago.”
“Sending the National Guard endangers Black communities already overpoliced and under-invested in,” she added. “If you cared about saving lives, you’d pass gun safety laws and fund community violence intervention.”
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Mobilization of the Bolivarian Militia in April 2025. Photo: Prensa Presidencial / Telegram
President Nicolás Maduro announced on Monday, August 18, that he is activating “over 4.5 million militia members across the entire national territory” of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in response to the US deployment of three Navy guided-missile destroyers and 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean. The White House has described the deployment as an anti-drug trafficking operation in the region, while some analysts have called it a new threat against Venezuela – the country with the largest oil reserves in the world.
The “extravagant, bizarre, and outlandish threats” of the United States have been firmly rejected by the Venezuelan government.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Yván Gil described the accusations as a sign of desperation, revealing Washington’s “lack of credibility and the failure of its policies in the region”. He also pointed out that Venezuela has made major gains against drug trafficking after expelling the United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) – who many Venezuelans call “the planet’s chief drug traffickers” – from the country in 2005.
No US agency or international body has produced concrete evidence of drug production and distribution being concentrated in Venezuela or linked to Maduro. In fact, available global drug data makes almost no mention of the Caribbean nation or the alleged “Cartel of Suns” at all. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the epicenter of activity is in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, with the US identified as the main destination for distribution, recording the highest level of drug consumption in the world.
UNODC data reports that only 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela, and that the country is free of coca leaf cultivation, and marijuana and cocaine processing. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has maintained its position that the Venezuelan government is a “narco-terror cartel”.
Venezuela mobilizes as the US bares its teeth
Last week, mass protests across Venezuela denounced the “interventionist policies of the US government” following the bounty increase on Maduro and the accusation of cartel ties. However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the deployment of US troops to the region on August 14. On Tuesday, August 19, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the administration was open to “boots on the ground” in Venezuela, to which she responded, “[Trump] is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country.”
This week, Venezuela’s “prepared, activated, and armed” militia members are being deployed “throughout the entire territory, and meticulously, sector by sector”, as part of what the government is calling a peace plan to defend the principles of sovereignty and shared economic development.
“The Bolivarian National Militia is the people in arms, it is the genuine expression of civic-military union,” said Maduro in 2019, as he announced the incorporation of the militia that Hugo Chávez created – which has surged to nearly 5 million members, according to the government – into the Armed Forces as an official “combat unit”.
“We are also deployed throughout the Caribbean,” Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reminded the public. “Our sea, which is Venezuelan territory.”
The Venezuelan government is not alone in speaking out against the escalation of tensions in the Caribbean. When asked about the US military deployment during a regular press conference, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico’s message to the region is, “No to interventionism. This is not just a conviction, it’s in the Constitution.”
To this day, the US does not recognize President Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the July 28 elections in Venezuela, claiming that opposition figure Edmundo González is the true president. In the months following the election, Washington targeted dozens of officials in the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) and other government departments with sanctions and visa bans, on top of the long-standing US economic blockade of the Bolivarian nation.
Despite the mounting pressure, Venezuelan officials are confident that the nation can defend its sovereignty. “It’s not about Maduro, it’s about the ordinary people, the people in the neighborhoods, the communities,” says Nahum Fernández, head of government in Caracas.
“This country belongs to Venezuelans; in the face of any threat, the Venezuelan people will not remain silent.”
A tanker from Thames Water
