A day after a meeting to deal with the water shortage and other issues from the hot weather, Mr Burnham condemns the idea that water companies in the worst drought affected areas should be allowed a small further increase in prices to cover the costs over the next few years of providing more water and water treatment capacity. He seems blissfully unaware that the Regulator has kept investment spending down over recent years to try to keep bills down, at the cost of the companies not being allowed to put in the extra capacity we obviously need. He also seems to be unable to grasp as PM that if we are to provide adequate supplies and capacity we either have to pay for that through our water bills, or the government will have to pay for it and send us bigger tax bills. The last thing we want, I would have thought, is the kind of design and construction delays and cost escalations that HS 2, our fully nationalised railway, has cursed us with when it comes to a needed programme of new reservoirs and treatment works.
Mr Burnham is right in thinking many people dislike the water companies, feeling let down by sewage in our rivers and now by the threat of water rationing during a drought. He is wrong to think nationalising would correct this. First, the nationalised industry in 1976 with similar weather was worse, with standpipe water only for some regions with no tap water in the home. It presided over permanently dirty rivers and seas with dumping raw sewage as a matter of policy. Second, if he did want a nationalised solution the costs of taking over the water companies would be huge, as UK shareholders, charities and pension funds that own some of them would not take kindly to theft. Once nationalised the whole extensive investment programmes they are already doing, and the extra investment needed, would be another colossal bill for taxpayers. The mistake with water privatisation was leaving the monopoly in place which so disfigured the nationalised regional concerns. I have set out before how water competition would unleash more capacity, innovation and new technology to resolve the shortages and dirty water.
My water bill is a small fraction of my Council Tax Bill. It presents good value for the water I use. The Lib Dem led Council wastes and loses a fortune on bad projects and bad management. It regularly puts the bill up by more than inflation. It spends a lot of money on consulting us, only to do the opposite of what we recommend in many cases. Mr Burnham should understand it is rip off government that is doing far more harm to most domestic budgets. He should also grasp the bad role played by the Water Regulator in getting us into a position where we have not put enough new capacity in to cater for the millions of extra people we have welcomed into our country this century.
August 14, 2026
It’s well-known that Thames Water has paid out billions in dividends for years, instead of investing more in water infrastructure. They have been fined by Ofwat, but still carry on. I’m not a fan of my council, but at least it doesn’t pay out millions to shareholders instead of repairing roads.
August 14, 2026
Well the government borrows by issuing guilts and pays billion out in interest on them instead. Then the Government wastes billions actually doing net harm on Covid “vaccines”, lockdowns, net harm net zero policies, HS2 and other such insanities.
Ofwat have be appalling regulators. The water companies have to contend with the system and regulations in place. The blame lies with regulators and the government as usual. More reservoirs or fewer people is what is needed and perhaps more grey water systems to use for loo flushing.
August 14, 2026
Just heard Jeremy Hunt (a DT podcast) say Gordon Brown “very sensibly” abolished inflation relief for CGT what a dope he is. He also defended his CT increase for 20% to 26% he was another doom loop Chancellor. Now not in office he pretends to be right wing Thatcherite. His five years as health sec. were a total disaster too he was also a net zero nut. Sunak, Cameron, May, Osborne, Hammond, Hunt were/are exactly what is wrong with the fake Tories.
August 14, 2026
@Lifelogic
In the media today ( August 2026) it is suggested we have the £3trillion problem. That’s the size of Britain’s national debt. Although the The Taxpayers’ Alliance, puts the number at £12trillion, once unfunded public sector pensions, PFI contracts and nuclear clean-up costs are included. They didn’t even include the £53billion needed to decommission North Sea Oil & Gas and the cost for NetZero at £30billion a year
August 14, 2026
The average cost of household tap water in the UK is approximately 0.3p to 0.4p per litre (including wastewater removal).
Seems fairly reasonable value to me. A loo flush can be as much as 10 litres so 4p a flush. if you really want to save flush only when essential (or use grey or rain water) and bathe once a month whether needed or not perhaps?
August 14, 2026
A new electric car is likely to cost you 50p to £1+ a mile over its useful life – water at 0,3p a litre including disposal is surely very good value.
August 14, 2026
@Lifelogic – Britain is now reliant on foreign money to finance its government debt. Or as everyone’s friend Mark Carney said ‘the kindness of stranger’
August 14, 2026
Problem with the council is there is absolutely no regulator apart from the electorate, who are kept in the dark about how their cash is spent on vanity projects. LibDems parading as wannabe sustainable business entrepreneurs.. with our money, not theirs. Books should be far more open to the electorate, and councillors should be involved more in hustings where Libdem types need to defend their starry eyed money pit policies.
But yes, government greed led to weak regulation to get the highest price. In the public interest until it’s not 10-30 years on.
August 14, 2026
The electorate get a vote every few years under a distorting FPTP voting to elect MPs who often as not do the reverse of what they promised they can hardly regulate anything they have virtually zero power. Once elected most MPs respond to party not the electorate. Many PMs and ministers seem to have total contempt for the electorate Major, Blair, Brown, Osborne, Cameron, May, Hammond, Boris, Sunak, Hunt, Clegg, Starmer, Burnham…
We need real and direct democracy it is no good electing a committee of mainly liars to drive the bus and just hope they will take you in the direction they promised too.
August 14, 2026
The council “shareholders” are their employees whose wages and pension funds have been growing nicely while the services we receive have been declining significantly. They are more interested in wasting millions on some political point scoringcycle path that the cyclists ignore than keeping roads and paths clear of weeds and undergrowth.
August 14, 2026
‘ Mr Burnham is right in thinking many people dislike the water companies.’
Too right. The Vampire Kangaroo were in charge round myway. The country is also aware of the failure of regulators across many companies and sectors – not just the water industry.
So there is understandable scepticism that competition will address the issues.
August 14, 2026
‘ ….an unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.’
Source :- An article on the original famous vampire.
August 14, 2026
So Farage has won with approximately two thirds of the vote despite the orchestrated campaign by the MSM and uniparty against him. He gas been advised not to attend by Essex Police due to a credible threat. Why is the left so quick with violence when things don’t go their way.
Reply Mr Farage got 62.8% of the vote. There is no Uniparty. The Conservative party stayed out of this needless by election. The police did not tell him to stay away from the count. Why lie?
August 14, 2026
‘ The police did not tell him to stay away from the count. Why lie?’
It’s Farage v the Essex Police as far as I can see.
‘Essex Police has not advised any candidate to avoid count, BBC understands’
‘Understands’ is doing a lot of work. Maybe IW trusts Farage more than Essex police ?
August 14, 2026
He is sensible to stay away from the result announcements as he might get another milk shake in his face and then some dire and vile unfunny BBC “comedian” suggesting it should have been batter acid.
To reply: there is indeed no formally established uni-party, but as we have seen for 30+ years most MP in the Tories, Labour, the Greens and Libdems have been pro EU, pro climate alarmism, pro “renewables”, pro the net harm Covid Vaccimes and lockdowns, pro net zero, for ever more legal and illegal immigration, for ever more government, for ever more taxes, for banning reservoirs and new road space, pro HS2, for ever more powers to quangos, WHO etc. (to further subvert democracy) and for ever more regulations and red tape…
From John Major through to Burnham we have had a uniparty in all but name and one that has been essentially wrong on almost everything often/usually not even trying to keep to the manifestos they won on.
Reply So how then did we get a referendum and Brexit? That came from Conservative governments.
August 14, 2026
reply to reply …you consistently claim as if your Party wanted to have a Referendum, when it was plain as (on a non-eclipse) day that public pressure and other Party statements that you were likely to lose the next election meant that you really must give in.
The biggest example of avoidance doing the things the ordinary electorate voter wanted and sealed your fate for GEs to come. An also ran.
Reply I helped lead a group of Conservative MPs who forced the hand of the Pm to grant one.
August 14, 2026
To reply:- thank you very much for that and for all your other consistently sensible works over 40 odd years. If only the party had taken far more note of your consistently sound advice over these years.
August 14, 2026
Comment on reply.
I think we got the Brexit referendum because they assumed Remain would win. As for Brexit, we got BRINO.
August 14, 2026
Surely you haven’t forgotten that the Conservative Party provoked what you call ‘this needless election’, Lord John? After a drubbing in the council elections this May at the hands of Reform, it complained to the Parliamentary standards committee about the Farage £5m donation. This gift had been in the public domain for two years, yet neither Labour nor the Lib Dems nor the Tories had sought to make an issue of it before. So now you’ve handed Farage an election win, with more people voting for him than at the general election, on a lower turn-out. Be careful what you wish for, I’d say.
August 14, 2026
So the anti-Farage people Tories, Greens, Libdims, Labour, Restore… could only muster 37.2% between them well done to the sensible voters of Clacton. We desperately need a sensible right wing government with a large majority after the next election. Alas, unless more of the country becomes more like Clacton we will get some dire left wing coalition and the Uni-Party will continue.
Reply Conservatives did not stand nor participate in this needless by election.
August 14, 2026
Reply to reply. I think the main Parties should have stood to give voters a chance to vote for someone else. Their absence was more reflective of their disdain for voters and democracy, than their loathing of Farage.
August 15, 2026
they didn’t stand ‘cos they expected a hiding for all to see.
August 14, 2026
@From the oiks perspective there is clearly a uniparty as the outcomes never change – we don’t get what we ask for, vote for or are promised. We have no agency in the game that is uniparty musical chairs. Elections are simply an exercise in misdirection with the electorate then ignored while the political tribe continue their unchanging misbehaviour and childish games.
And how is Clacton any different from Makerfield, any less truly needless, where the Conservatives did field a candidate.
Reply Conservatives fielded a candidate in Makerfield because the MP had resigned and was not standing again. There needed to be a real contest. There only needs to be a real contest in Clacton if Parliament finds Mr Farage guilty of whatever, in which case the Conservatives will field a candidate.Mr Farage had a mandate for the Parliament from the 2024 election.
August 14, 2026
To reply:-
Nigel Farage’s financial and declaration matters are assessed and investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards (Daniel Greenberg), whose findings and conduct cases are overseen by the House of Commons Select Committee on Standards. Separately, general expenditure by MPs is governed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), and electoral spending limits are monitored by the Electoral Commission.
So by people with little independence and many with a large anti reform political agenda. Doubtless most are pro-EU, pro Net Zero, pro big government, pro mass immigrstion people.
Member MPsThe MP members include Paula Barker, Gill Furniss, Anna Sabine, Dr. Neil Shastri-Hurst, Gareth Snell, and Michael Wheeler.
Lay (Independent) MembersThe committee features independent members Prof. Michael Maguire, Mehmuda Mian, Victoria Smith, Sir Francis Habgood, Dr. Rose Marie Parr, Dr. David Stirling, and Carys Williams.
August 14, 2026
Alberto Costa a Tory MP is chairman of the committee and was needless to say another Tory remainer and I assume like nearly all Tories was happy to nod through May’s moronic net zero lunacy. So will such a man be able to impartial on Farage’s finances?
August 14, 2026
I think the point is that the mainstream media imply his guilt, as do other parties’ representatives. You can see why he might have wanted his actual electors to have a say. If people like Badenoch and Davey were so convinced about his conduct, then they should have had the courage of their convictions and stood somebody to win, as one old Liberal used to say many years ago,.
August 14, 2026
From what I gather, the threat was about disruption by activists rather than of physical violence. If the count was going to be hijacked with disruptive behaviour it seems quite sensible not to go and spare everyone the spectacle. If any of those activists did turn up tooled for action, he is also saving the strain on the police.
Reply I always attended the count when I was a candidate, including in Peckham when I lost. I was always vulnerable to unhelpful jibes and behaviours from other candidates or their supporters.
August 14, 2026
A day after a meeting to deal with the water shortage and other issues from the hot weather, Mr Burnham condemns the idea that water companies in the worst drought affected areas should be allowed a small further increase in prices to cover the costs over the next few years of providing more water and water treatment capacity.
The modern day MP as its head stuck up its own arse to see now a days what’s so bleeding obvious, build more reservoir like Rutland Waters it’s not rocket science, the U.K. population as grown by millions over the last 30-40 years so it’s obvious to a blind man that more reservoirs are
needed or get a pipeline from Scotland to England built, stop all this Net Zero crap and there’s billions to help to build this infrastructure
August 14, 2026
It’s incredible that all governments are unable to prioritise water
August 14, 2026
Not all local authorities were inefficient. The Borough of Epsom & Ewell developed its own system of artesian wells and a reservoir. This was taken over by Thames Water, which was privatised by the then government which refused to compensate the ratepayers of Epsom & Ewell who had paid for the system in the first place, and continued to suffer from Thames Water’s inefficiencies.
August 14, 2026
MS,
Indeed. Epsom council is run by the local residents association.
Unfortunately, it will soon be absorbed into a single East Surrey unitary council.
August 14, 2026
Sad fact of life is that someone has to pay if we need more clean water and less pollution in our rivers.
The fact is it will be either the customers or the taxpayer, or indeed we could pay twice with an element of both.
I guess it comes down to who do you trust the most.
Fines for poor performance do not work, as it is the customer who eventually pays for those.
Governments have a very poor record when it comes to value for money, as do privatised Monopolies where there is no competition.
If there was completion in the market as JR suggests, who would pay for repairs to leaks when different customers and companies would be using the same pipes, would we have a separate grid type maintenance organisation paid for on the basis of the number of customers the individual suppliers have on tap !.
Reply Same as common carrier contracts using the one gas pipe into a home, with Competition law ensuring fairness between rival water producers.
August 14, 2026
Reply to Reply : There does not exist a national water grid as there is for electricity and gas and hence there is no system which enables rival water producers to compete. Competition could be more easily set up for waste water treatment.
August 14, 2026
The people who need to pay are not the long-suffering customers, but the private equity firms who bought the water companies when they were privatised all those years ago. They loaded a critical infrastructure industry – with no debt – with huge borrowings and instead of investing in the industry, paid the money out in dividends and mega-bonuses for senior management. While dumping humungous quantities of untreated sewage into our chalk streams, rivers and bathing beaches. And failing to build a single new reservoir. Not one.
Maybe Govey, the architect of the self-monitoring regime for sewage dumping – after he fired all the Environment Agency inspectors – should come up with a proposal. Or Michael Howard, who organised the sell-off.
August 14, 2026
SG : I blame the regulators who should have regulated! And if their powers were insufficient they should have applied to Parliament for anything they required. But they allowed the mega bonuses and made no attempt to bring to Parliament’s attention that Parliament’s desire for mass, uncontrolled immigration would require either water rationing or the building of further sources of supply and waste treatment.
August 14, 2026
+1
August 14, 2026
We need to look at ways to move water from different parts of country by movement along canals and rivers by pumps and pipe line.
August 14, 2026
I agree. It has long puzzled me as to why there is not a national water pipeline grid.
The reason we don’t see endless queues of aviation fuel tankers trying to get into Heathrow and other major airports is because we long ago built up a national aviation fuel pipeline linking them to sources of supply.
Without such a pipeline traffic around major airports would be permanently gridlocked by tank is trying to deliver fuel.
If it can be done for aviation fuel, why can it not be done for water?
August 14, 2026
Water is very dense and requires a lot of energy to pump around and this costs a lot of money. Especially with our dreadfully high electricity costs.
August 14, 2026
No, we need to look at ways of ceasing to “welcome” people into our country, and maybe kicking out some of those already “welcomed” people.
Would you advocate piping water from the south to the north if the boot was on the other foot ?
Thought not.
August 15, 2026
If I owed a dinghy across the Channel with no evidence of who I am, what resources I could access, and my concern at physical violence on the streets of UK – what would the French do about me?
I really DO have a concern at physical violence just with the right of free speech on the streets. And that goes for the Police using restraining methods on me that amounts to violence, let alone those who might wish to silence my opinions.
August 14, 2026
Once again Lord JR you recognise the water industry in England is failing us the consumer. Privatisation of water has failed. Yet you continue to refer back to when the industry was nationalised and also failed us.
Privatisation happened 37 years ago under Mrs Thatcher. It has been a disaster.
Surely we can return to a nationalised water system (for England) armed with the knowledge of both previous nationalisation and privatisation. Using that knowledge to create a better more effective nationalised water industry.
Reply You would not like the big increase in tax to pay for renationalisation and to pay for the extra investment it would need. There is no evidence nationalisation has got better. look at the Post Office and HS2.
August 14, 2026
If I had any power, there would be zero tax increases to pay for water nationalisation. I would cancel overseas aid and close the borders to illegal immigrants. Send all foreign prisoners back to their home country. Zero benefits to anyone who has not contributed through tax for ten years. Ban non residents in England from accessing the NHS. Billions saved overnight. (I could probably think of some more) But none will happen, because we are governed by cowards.
August 15, 2026
You have forgotten what it was like under nationalisation. Standpipes. Mass poisoning. Brown water. Sewage going raw into the sea at both ends of the beach. And all for a much smaller population too.
August 14, 2026
ALSO look at the NHS, schools, universities, the MHRA, the National Health England, the Covid “vaccines” and lock down lunacy, the train crashes recently, defence procurement, the planning system, energy…
August 14, 2026
In Burnham’s World no one should pay for the services the use and need. His Socialist World precludes the need to earn to pay for a tomorrow. He lives in the old World time warp of the ‘never-never’ was the answer to all questions.
Tell me, how do we find the money to pay the interest on all these debts he and this Parliament is racking up ?
August 14, 2026
My water bill is extortionate. We use a lot of water but why shouldn’t we, water is necessary for life, cleanliness and comfort.
I pay my bill I expect water to come out of all my taps at good pressure and clean. I do not expect to pay for leaking mains elsewhere in the system.
There is only one water pipe so competition is problematic, it works for telecoms and gas and electricity because the margins for wholesale are greater. I do not believe the margins are there for water.
We are where we are, but a private business seeking to invest should go to its shareholders not its customers. Especially a monopoly.
Reply Water margins cannot be low and the prices extortionate!
August 14, 2026
Margins can be low if direct costs are not controlled e.g. leaks and fines
August 14, 2026
Competition for the supply of water needs the existence of a national water grid. This exists for telecoms, electricity and gas. It has nothing to do with margins.
August 14, 2026
Yes but it’s water for goodness sake! Raw material costs are zero. Just needs extracting, storing, filtering, treating, pumping to and from. Mainly using gravity. It’s not rocket science.
August 14, 2026
We don’t need more reservoirs, we need less development on overloaded areas of this country. The land absorbs water through the year and releases it steadily by springs. That’s the ration, live within it.
Reply We need both. We need more reservoirs to catch up with the rising population, and we need an end to net migration to stop future strains
August 14, 2026
I’m having a mini-strike at the moment. The verge outside my property is common land and used to be maintained by the Council. However this has been happening less and less often over the years. In the happy days the council employed the workmen, it was mowed at least once a month in the summer. This year I first cut it at the end of March and was somewhat pevved to see the contractor then arrive the next day waving a strimmer about to no great effect. For some reason it really annoyed me (small things do these days – like this Government)
We are now well past “No Mow May” and no one has been here since. The verge is overgrown with dead weeds and grass which I’m sure my neighbours hate. Their verges are also dead but at least cut – mostly because they employ ‘Gardeners’ to do it for them (“Gardener is a misnomer – Professional Leafblower would be more accuarate). We have always maintained our own garden and property but my wife is not able to do very much these days and I’m not always that much better. Throw in the recent heat and we are just working to stay cool.
Wokingham Council keep sending us news about their latest SEND initiative or the Woodley Cycleway – as well as invites to “Get Involved”. I see no point as I don’t believe they care what I “think” – they are going to do what they want anyway.
We pay a very large Council Tax each year (much more than our gas & electricity bills) and all we want is the bins emptied, the road maintained and the grass outside cut. Is that too much to ask?
August 14, 2026
How does one define the ‘public domain’? The £5m gift was reported by bankers to the NCA on 16 May 2024, but the info only became really public when a newspaper reported the fact on 26 April 2026.
As for the Wokingham Council budget a quick view is available from
wokingham.gov.uk ‘Budget breakdown 2025/26’ with 39.2% spent on adult social care, 24.5% on children services.
Then Place & Growth (18.2%) includes Transport & Highways, Waste and Recycling, Planning, Parks & Open Spaces, Community Safety.
Resources & Assets (10.9%) and Chief Executive’s Office (7.2%) cover the rest.
August 14, 2026
‘A newspaper’: The Guardian. They were tipped off by the National Crime Agency two years after the donation took place. Why then, has to be the question.
August 14, 2026
The establishment and the media are seemingly very determined to stop him and Reform from interupting their cosy three party system.
Dirt is being digged relentlessly.
I think the efforts to discredit him will backfire at the next election.
August 14, 2026
This is not a great surprise from Mr Burnham; Socialism and Socialists have never had much connection with reality: their creed is that everyone should have everything they want, without having to think of where it comes from.
The water industry’s problems go right back to the period of Nationalisation when they were starved of investment, and then subjection to a Regulator who achieved the same thing.
August 14, 2026
We already know there are problems with our water supply, because Water companies have allowed dividends and debt to grow. No water company should be allowed to pay dividends until their infrastructure is leak-free and they don’t discharge sewage into rivers and the sea! Tough, yes, but necessary action by the government or the regulator. Plus, new reservoirs should also be a priority.
It would also help if we stopped importing thousands and thousands of immigrants. We already knopw our new PM intends to do nothing to stop them, because of his comments on more legal routes and middle class areas having to take their fair share. The PM talks a good fight, but what he does, or does not do, speaks louder than what he says!
August 14, 2026
Burnham is simply playing to his own soundbites, he’s started the idea that he will protect us against unnecessary price rises but forgets about the big ones. He caps only the small ones, for his captive audience.
He should have more sense than to play with our water supply – it’s a basic part of the security of the country.
I wonder – would it be possible for water companies to appeal directly to the public to buy shares in the new reservoir schemes?
But when would such schemes start producing profit, if at all?
August 14, 2026
So he’s no better and no different from his predecessor. Do those in government ever listen to private-sector experts?
It seems, these days, if a PM wants advice, he takes it from a young political SPAD (Special Advisor) rather than an industry expert.
Interestingly, ‘SPAD’ also refers to a “Signal passed at danger”. So very appropriate in too many cases of late.
August 14, 2026
Our water bills are a fraction of our energy bills and our water company is excellent. I dislike the kneejerk incitement to hate the water companies at the behest of the politicians who put in the regulators.
August 14, 2026
Whether water bills are a small fraction of some other expense is not a relevant measure. If water is badly managed and wasteful that is the issue.
August 15, 2026
It most certainly is the issue. If the water regulators are holding down the bills, year after year, how can the companies invest? How can they put in new pipes and reservoirs? The whole point of unnationalising was to get this investment, which could not be got under nationalisation because of competition from the NHS and education etc. But the advantage is lost if socialist regulators are put in and prevent investment.
August 14, 2026
I’m very happy with my water supplier, United Utilities. It’s one of my cheapest bills at around £26 a month (on a meter). I wish I could say the same for my Council Tax, which is extortionate for the lack of services they provide. We also recycle most of our water, which goes to water the garden, so very little is wasted. We catch water from the roof, shower and bath. Maybe it would be better to educate consumers to do the same where possible. We haven’t needed to use a hosepipe in years.
It looks to me like overpopulation is causing these issues, so fix that rather than taking away precious farmland for more reservoirs.
August 14, 2026
Providing more water should be as simple as plugging the extremely wasteful leaks in the system.
August 14, 2026
How do you respond to the claim that thanks to public ownership Scotlad has lower water bills, better water quality and more investment?
Reply It also has competition for business users. It has not had the same big ibcrease in population from migration and gets more rainfall.
August 14, 2026
Burnham needs to tell us how would he bring water companies into state ownership and how would he then be able to invest the many billions water companies are pledging to invest.
Eg Severn Trent…who pay good dividends to shareholders…are spending over £20 billions 2025 to 2030
August 14, 2026
In other important news
‘Mauritius Unilaterally Extends Its Territorial Waters to Cover Chagos Islands’ https://order-order.com/2026/08/14/mauritius-unilaterally-extends-its-territorial-waters-to-cover-chagos/
Does this mean WAR
August 14, 2026
Much in the way the Hoover dam was built not just to provide water and power, but also to employ lots of people at a time when that was needed in the economy… I would have thought some politicians here and now would have thought some spending on reservoirs would be helpful. But I cannot help think if we did similar here and now most of the jobs would go to immigrant labour.
We are massively overspending, so we do need radical reprioritisation, and massive cuts to bring us to a position where we are paying off the national debt and not just running it up indefinitely.
We need to 1 stop immigration 2 drill for oil and gas 3 stop spending more than we earn 4 massive handover of power to individual citizens and away from the state in everything from healthcare, to schools, to housing, and so much more.
August 14, 2026
Re water costs and bills: you may think your water bill represents value for money, but wait until it escalates (as it surely will) and you discover you are one of proportionately ever fewer actually paying the full charge, and those you are subsidising become the vast majority. As Thames Water pointed out on air years ago, for any discounts, those paying the full charge must pay more.
The reason for the increased demand for water is not hard to seek – and the immigration surge continues (911 migrants this week crossed the Channel illegally from France). This in turn creates further pull, and then eventually a multiplicity of ‘family’ immigrants per illegal entry. No wonder that all basic services are nearing breaking point. The cost is spread over fewer and fewer net payers with each passing year.
August 14, 2026
Can someone enlighten me as to where the water is coming from to cool the considerable number of data centres? Apparently majority in London and along Thames Valley/M4 corridor. A single facility apparently uses a lot of water. If so, adding to the already desperate water shortages, in many areas. Not to mention the huge tracts of farmland being built over. Also, do these centres contribute to the heat problems being experienced? Read today we have several hundred centres already. What are we to believe?
Reply Using water as a coolant does not destroy the water which can be reused.
August 15, 2026
That is good, however what percentage is lost during the cooling systems used? Are you dying all centres use a closed loop system?
August 16, 2026
“Similar weather” ?
The previous 12 months rainfall for England is 101% of long term average.