The water polluters, who should be in prison, instead say sorry, pocket millions and get off scot-free.

Their apologist is Ruth Kelly, another of those ex-ministers who move swiftly through revolving doors, picking up fat salaries along the way.

Since leaving her job as an MP in May 2010, she has been a director of Heathrow

Airport,  a director of HSBC, a financial adviser to the Vatican, a director of the conservative Policy Exchange think-tank, Pro-Vice Chancellor of St Mary’s University, all topping-up her ex-MP’s generous pension. This fast-rolling stone gathers no moss, but plenty of dosh.

As  Chair of water UK, on 18th May 2023 she said how sorry are the water companies for their illegal discharges of raw sewage into our rivers, canals and coastal waters on average 285 times each day.  The companies have been fined and, of course, the fines are paid by us, the water companies’ customers. The Environment Agency’s recommendation that the guilty company executives should be jailed has been blocked by the government and by the pathetically limp labour Party front bench (with Starmer pursuing his strategy of being friendly to big business, thus ensuring the continuation of the revolving door and lucrative futures for all ex-ministers) and collecting donations to the Labour Party’s funds.

Here’s just one  example of the corruption that surrounds privatised water. In2021, the CEO of Thames Water got £2 million in pay and bonuses, although the company was fined £4 million for dumping raw sewage, turning the River Thames into an open sewer. Anybody tempted, this summer, to swim in the sea at Whitstable, Margate, Southend, or anywhere else on the estuary coastline,  would be wise to go to a swimming pool instead. Twice a day the Thames Estuary will have heavily contaminated water washed to and from on the tide.

The water companies’ disingenuous apology is accompanied by the commitment to spend £10 million on up-grading the infrastructure which has been largely neglected since the Victorians built it. There is no time-scale to their plan and no detail, but we do know the cost will be paid not by the  companies’ share-holders, but by us, the customers.

These foreign-owned companies purloin our water and sell it back to us. They pollute our waterways and beaches and charge us for cleaning up the disgusting mess.

The companies should get the sack and this essential  service should be taken back into public ownership. Such a move is, of course, anathema to the Conservative government and the gutless Labour Party under its brazenly conservative Leader, Starmer.

We await the water companies’ up-grading plans.  They can be expected to want to do the job on the cheap.

The very least they should do is install pipes and treatment plants that keep sewage and rainwater separate. This separation would reduce the volume of water entering sewers during rainfall and end the appalling wastage of precipitated water, which would require some purification treatment, entering reservoirs that supply household tap water.

A civilised society should also separate black water and grey water at the domestic level.

Black water is sewage, in other words, the outflow from lavatories. Grey water is the outflow from kitchen sinks, baths, showers, dishwashers and washing machines in houses, schools and offices. Untreated grey water can be used to flush lavatories, although a degree of filtration will reduce the likelihood of blockage of the plumbing system. Filtered grey water can safely be used for irrigation of gardens and farmland.

The separation of black and grey water should be mandatory for all new buildings and there should be a timetable for the necessary pipework and storage tanks to be retrofitted to existing buildings.