The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today demanded that the United Nations Security Council and Iraq meet in an emergency session, as he attacked plans by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair to step up his country’s nuclear programme. ‘We cannot let someone as dangerous and unstable as Blair who is a pariah in his own country resume his nuclear programme,’ explained an Iranian Government spokesman in Basra. [Private Eye]
How long, oh lord, how long before we get an English political party intent on winning enough real political power to shut down the Weaponry Factories and get the English out of Global Money Laundering and Imperial Killingry? Some of the implications of the postings on the Charter 2015 blogsite may be pointing in the right direction…The Knights of Gaia for instance…first published by John Seymour in 2001 in Fourth World Review (Number 112).
Organisation: None whatsoever; Rules: Each Knight makes up his or her own; People qualified to become Knights: Everyone, Anywhere; How to become a Knight: Make the vow aloud in front of at least one other person. Policy: There will be no central organisation. Each local group of knights shall form their local community and arrange to meet locally at regular intervals to plan their campaigns against the enemies of life. It will be the duty of each group to ensure that any atrocity against life in its area be attacked and destroyed. The need to establish national journals of the Knights, or even a world one to keep Knights in touch with each other is evident. And here is the vow.
’I declare that all life is sacred. I vow to dedicate my own life henceforth to defending, cherishing and protecting life on Earth. I hereby declare war on all enemies of life on Earth and I hereby vow to conduct an unremitting fight against them. I will behave with true knightly courtesy to all my sister and brother Knights and give them what aid and succour they need.’ Our Knights might start by de-privatising rain…one of many Commons stolen from us by deceit and deception. Herewith another gem from Private Eye that gets to the heart of the matter.
Water companies were warning customers last night that the reservoirs of money were ‘not as full as they would like.’ Said a spokesman, ‘Normally we have lakes full of cash...buckets full of the stuff sloshing around everywhere ...but this year we’ve taken so much out in dividends that our stocks are severely depleted.’ Customers are being urged to save money and not waste it needlessly on non-essentials. ‘Use as little money as possible this summer,’ reads a nationwide campaign, ‘because you’ll need it to pay your enormous water bill later in the year.’ What to do?
You can reduce your water consumption and invest the savings in a water business. You may already have done so. Do you know where your pension funds are invested? Apologists for shareholder profits often point to pension funds and insurance companies investing on behalf of their pension and policy holders as the recipients of water company profits. Why not join with other pension fund holders to put pressure on pension fund managers to invest directly in water instead of indirectly in water companies. Why not get your Pension Fund to buy reservoirs in your county…and give you free water. A Kent reservoir must be a sound investment.
If you are not into Shareholder Activism at least trap every drop of water falling on your home and garden from the heavens above. You have gutters and drainpipes don’t you? Use them to feed rainwater into large barrels and water tanks around your house and in the back garden. Why not build your own reservoir at the bottom of the garden? Call it a swimming pool to get round the planning laws. People swim…and fish piddle…in water company reservoirs.
The truth is that future generations will look upon the idea of privatising water as one of the more bizarre political and economic contortions of our age. You think Welsh Water is a good alternative role model? Nothing is ever what it seems. Dyr Cymru is wholly owned by the not for profit organisation Glas Cymru formed to buy the original water business back from the unwieldy inefficient Utility Conglomerate that Welsh Water had become after privatisation with the usual outrageous price rises…to invest in renewing the neglected water and sewerage infrastructure.
But the Profit Statement and Balance Sheet of de-privatised Welsh Water 2006 bears only a passing resemblance to those of pre-privatisation Welsh Water 1986. Western Power Distribution stripped it of its assets, loaded the water business with debt and offloaded the people before flogging it to Glas Cymru. Welsh Water is an Enron-style outsourcing operation. United Utilities look after day-to-day operations, Thames Water does customer service and a dozen private organisations are into Cascade Outsourcing of capital projects…enriching themselves with contracts.
After these private operators have had their snouts in the trough…’releasing shareholder value’…it matters not a whit whether Glas Cymru is for profit or not. For years profits have been vanishing from the business like leaks from a broken water pipe…and they are still draining away. Private Eye never got close. The real scandal is the looting that began 20 years ago when water prices started to increase without any improvement in service quality. Perhaps it is time to revisit the dodgy dossiers drawn up in the 1980s to steal the Welsh rain from the Welsh people? If compensation is paid for mis-selling pension and endowment policies why not for the over-pricing of water?
