A worker from Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker to the village of Northend in Oxfordshire
THAMES Water’s record fines for sewage spills and improper dividends only underline our inability to hold water companies to account.
Water regulator Ofwat is hardly blameless when it comes to the supplier’s crippling debts, amassed by unscrupulous transnational corporations to shower their shareholders in cash — safe in the knowledge that when an essential service goes bust, it’s the British public that foots the bill.
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Ofwat is a captured regulator, and not just because chairman Iain Coucher (who made a fortune in another publicly subsidised privatised service, the railway, and who has named his extensive Sound of Jura estate Iainland) has been caught enjoying the hospitality of the water companies (as has Steve Reed).
Its negotiations with water firms on price hikes have allowed steep rises in household bills despite the rotten state of the network, which they say they have to pay to repair, being the direct result of their own mismanagement.
As Weston has himself made clear before parliamentary committees, making a privatised water firm pay for its crimes will simply see investors pull out, forcing the government to rescue it. Fines for bad behaviour are just one of the recognised business costs they weigh against the greater cost of water companies investing in infrastructure and repairs, or delivering a value-for-money service.
Designing elaborate regulatory regimes to stop capitalists behaving like capitalists hasn’t worked any better for water than it has for energy. It’s a con, and the only way to ensure our water supply is managed in the public interest is to take it into public hands.
US ports are now starting to see scheduled shipments from China decline as the result of Donald Trump’s 145% tariffs on Chinese goods. The port of Los Angeles, the biggest port for Chinese goods in the US, is predicting scheduled shipments in early May to be about a third lower than the same time last year.
Declining numbers of ships arriving stocked with Chinese imports are likely to affect US supermarket shelves soon, and after warnings from US supermarket bosses, Trump responded by saying trade talks between the US and China were under way in the past few days. But Chinese president Xi Jinping quickly denied talks were happening, suggesting he has no intention of backing away from a fight with the US.
As one of the most powerful leaders in the history of the People’s Republic of China, Xi has fashioned himself as a nationalistic icon. So if China perceives Trump’s tariffs as a bully tactic designed to undermine it, backing down from a confrontation with the US would seriously undermine Xi’s strongman image and rhetoric.
This is something that Trump probably hadn’t considered. At a rally marking his 100 days in office, the US president was still suggesting that China would just back down and “eat the tariffs”.
While tariffs appear to be the primary weapon in the trade war, China might have more tactics to hit back at Trump and the US economy. The question is what might they be?
A few weeks ago it seemed like Washington might punish China’s lack of willingness to negotiate with more tariffs, but now it’s clear that Trump is willing to make a deal and is trying to get China to come to the table. Trump is now implying that US tariffs on China could come down substantially. And US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has called the trade war with China “unsustainable”.
Leveraging agriculture and energy
China has reduced its reliance on US farm imports since the trade war began in Trump’s first presidency. This is bad news for Washington as agriculture is one few sectors in the US that actually has a large trade surplus with China. The 125% retaliatory tariffs will harm the sector’s profitability.
But China’s retaliatory tariffs aren’t the only issue American farmers have to contend with. As the trade war escalates, China has been using bureaucratic hurdles to restrict US agricultural products from entering China and as a potential negotiation tool. For instance, China has delayed the renewals of export license renewals of US pig farmers, and refused to renew licenses of poultry farmers for “health and safety” reasons.
Beijing’s actions might be designed to particularly hit the economy in core Trump supporting states. A major part of Trump and the Republican party’s base lies in “red states”, such as Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas, all have significant farming communities. Focusing on agricultural issues is a tactic that Beijing realises will hit home with Trump voters.
Out of the 444 US counties designated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as farming-dependent, 77.7% voted for Trump during the 2024 US presidential election. So, any hardship faced by the agriculture sector due to Trump’s own actions is likely to lose him support from a major political base. And with mid-term elections in 2026, Trump has to tread carefully when antagonising Beijing.
Another support base that Beijing might seek to undermine is those involved in the fossil fuel sector. In the past, the US has been a top supplier of natural gas to China.
China has not imported natural gas from the US since early February 2025, and has sought its natural gas from Australia, Indonesia, and Brunei. As the trade war continues, it is unlikely that the US would be able to sell its natural gas to China anytime soon, and this will have an impact on the energy industry – one of Trump’s major political support bases.
Restricting minerals
Another huge problem that the US faces stems from China’s restriction of the export of critical minerals. They include seven rare earth minerals namely samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. While these are used in the clean energy and automobile sectors, the biggest concern would come from the US defence complex.
The White House probably anticipated export restrictions of critical minerals from China. After all, Beijing had banned the export of critical minerals to Japan in 2010 over a fishing trawler dispute, and stopped exporting “dual-use” metals that can be used to produce civilian and military technology, such as gallium, germanium and tungsten.
What’s next?
For the last few years, China has been trying to overcome an ailing economy that was primarily fuelled by a real-estate crisis. Trump probably expected China to buckle under pressure and come crawling to the negotiation table. After all, the Chinese Communist Party needs to fix its economy fast. The establishment has long relied on delivering economic prosperity to legitimise its rule over China.
Right now the tit-for-tat battle continues. By April 11, US tariffs on China peaked at 145%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods reached an unprecedented 125%.
Although it is clearly fighting back, China could go even further by selling off US treasuries and increasing US interest rates and thus borrowing cost. But unlike Trump, Xi often plays the long game. After all, Trump’s term as president will be over in less than four years, while Chinese president Xi has no term limits. All the latter has to do is exercise patience, and a friendlier US president might come around.
A general view of British Steel in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, April 12, 2025
LABOUR has been urged to catch up with public support for nationalising services “just as strategically important” as British Steel.
Campaigners and unions have continued to call for the full nationalisation of the company after the government passed an emergency law on Saturday to seize control of its Scunthorpe plant.
The legislation was passed in a single day, empowering ministers to save the last plant making “virgin steel” direct from raw materials from imminent closure, as well as thousands of jobs.
But Labour’s action was likened to an expensive public bailout today amid growing calls for the government to stop the private sector from running other services into the ground.
We Own It founder and director Cat Hobbs said: “The government has sprung into action to protect British Steel as a strategically important industry, with nationalisation on the table.
“In 2020, Keir Starmer promised public ownership of rail, mail, energy and water — as well as ending outsourcing in our NHS and local government.
“These public services are just as strategically important as steel, as drivers of economic and social development.
“Since Thatcher’s sell off, many of our key public services have been handed over to foreign states, offshore funds and billionaires.
“If Starmer is looking to take back control of our economy, this would be a good place to start.
“The UK public overwhelmingly supports public ownership and it’s high time our government caught up.”
PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer was told to apologise after Ofgem approved a surprise 6.4 per cent rise in average energy bills set to hit working families and pensioners the hardest yesterday.
Sir Keir was accused of breaking general election pledge to slash bills by £300 after the energy regulator announced a rise of £111 from April to £1,849 a year for the typical household.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the third consecutive increase in the cap on gas and electricity charges “is a cruel increase which is going to hit the elderly and low-paid workers the hardest.
“How can this be acceptable when energy companies are making billions in profits and millions of people are struggling to keep warm?
“The government should be making sure that everyone in the UK is able to stay warm, not making it harder.
“It can start by reversing its disastrous policy of cutting the winter fuel allowance and by returning key energy companies to public ownership, starting with the National Grid.”
A Palestinian child plays amid the rubble of destroyed buildings at the Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, Palestine on January 2, 2025. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
The Knesset members are urging the Israeli military to destroy all sources of water, food, and energy—and to kill “anyone not flying a white flag of surrender.”
At least seven far-right members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, are calling on the country’s defense minister to order the total destruction of northern Gaza’s food, water, and energy sources—most of which have already been obliterated by 15 months of relentless attacks—and the killing of any Palestinian who isn’t clearly surrendering to the attackers.
In a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz dated December 31, the lawmakers assert that the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) campaign to forcibly expel Palestinians from northern Gaza—which critics have called ethnic cleansing—”isn’t being done properly” and is not “achieving the war objectives as defined by the government, which is the dismantling of Hamas’ governing and military capabilities.”
According to a translation by international humanitarian law expert Itay Epshtain on Thursday, the letter calls on the IDF to:
Destroy all energy sources including fuel, solar systems, generators, and power lines;
Destroy all food sources including warehouses, water, and water pumps; and
Lay siege and remotely kill everyone not flying a white flag of surrender.
That last demand apparently includes men, women, and children. IDF troops would then “enter gradually for a complete cleansing of the enemy’s nests,” according to the letter.
Lawmakers who signed the letter and their party affiliations include: Avraham Bezalel (Shas), Amit Halevi (Likud), Limor Son Har-Melech (Jewish Power), Osher Shkalim (Likud), Zvi Sukkot and Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism), and Nissim Vaturi (Likud).
Vaturi, the deputy Knesset speaker, previously called for Gaza to be “wiped off the face of the Earth” and argued for Israel to “stop being humane” and “burn Gaza now,” because “there are no innocents there.”
Notably, the lawmakers’ letter does not mention anything about freeing the more than 60 hostages believed to be alive and imprisoned by Hamas and possibly other groups in Gaza.
As Israeli journalist Bar Peleg reported Friday from the Jabalia refugee camp:
When the soldiers and officers in Jabalia are asked about their mission, the answer is destroying Hamas and its infrastructure, until the last terrorist is laid to rest. When they are asked, “And what about the hostages?” One soldier answered, “That concerns us, like it does everyone, but it isn’t a part of our operational considerations.”
Northern Gaza is already in ruins. As Peleg noted, “not a single habitable building remains” in Jabalia. Nearly all homes, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged.
“Look at the extent of the destruction and annihilation here,” one IDF officer said. “No one has done this before.”
An IDF officer recently told Haaretz that one commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, seeks to personally execute the so-called Generals’ Plan—a blueprint for the starvation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from northern Gaza—by besieging and expelling 250,000 Palestinians from the area. United Nations officials estimate that more than 100,000 Palestinians have been forced from northern Gaza, even as the IDF says it disavows the Generals’ Plan.
Israeli policies and actions, as well as written and spoken calls for the destruction of Gaza and its people, have been presented as evidence in the South African-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister who ordered the siege of Gaza, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued arrest warrants for the pair and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Israel’s 455-day bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza has left at least 165,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to officials there.
A worker from Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker to the village of Northend in Oxfordshire
