Heat Wave

Heat wave. Hmmph, really? I wanted  to write about Conservative sleaze, the dangers of privatisation, rampant profiteering by utility companies, England's raw sewage scandal. No? 

Oh, OK,  "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave" was a huge hit for Martha and the Vandellas in the summer of 1963, a glorious dancefloor sound, and a record that helped to mainline 'Motown' music into the swinging Sixties. Good though it was, I actually prefer the punchier version released by The Jam on their 'Setting Sons' LP from 1979 (and which I've added a link to at the close of this post).

Now may I write about the iniquities of selling off state industries, greedy shareholders, the poo that's plopping into our rivers and coastal waters? Still no?

Oh, OK, "The Heat's On" is my current reading matter, one in a series of brilliant crime novels set in Harlem and written by Chester Himes in the 1950s and 1960s. They all feature a pair of edgy African-American policemen, Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, the heat on the streets in their neighbourhood of NYC, and the villains, scams, gang wars, corruption, prejudice and outrageous twists of fate they have to deal with in their everyday. Chester Himes knew the world he wrote about from the inside; audacious plots, addictive reading.

By the way, going back to 1979, as chance would have it I was living for a few months in Finchley, north London. It had been Margaret Thatcher's safe parliamentary seat since the late 1950s and she went into into the general election of 3rd May 1979 as leader of the opposition, looking to sweep the Tories back into power. Needless to say I voted for the Labour candidate Richard May (13,040 votes) while Thatcher romped home to retain her seat (20,918 votes), win the election and install herself in Downing Street. It was a dark night. It was also from that point and through most of the next twenty years that the country took the serious turn for the worse that has led us to where we are in 2022. Time to talk shit? Not yet?

Oh, OK. "Heat Wave" was US the title given to a 1954 crime thriller film scripted and directed by Ken Hughes, about an American writer living in England who got entangled in a scheme by a beautiful blonde to murder her husband. Sid James was the husband, Hillary Brooke the steamy but duplicitous trophy wife and Alex Nicol the writer. Clearly the English title "The House Across The Lake" didn't have enough seductive sizzle for stateside audiences. Now, surely, it's time to address the big issue: Tory turds, affluence and effluents? Yes! Thank you...

a very English shitshow

Not to put too fine a point on it, ever since Thatcher and the Tories came to power in 1979, good practice in the English water industry has gone down the pan. Pour yourself a stiff tincture and read on.

Although most of the water works in England were originally built as private enterprises in Victorian times, it was Joseph Chamberlain in 1884 who first made the case for nationalisation of the country's water supply and sewage system on the grounds that water should be considered a public health necessity and not a commodity. He added that "It is difficult, if not impossible to combine the citizens' rights and interests and the private enterprise's interests, because the private enterprise aims at its natural and justified objective, the biggest possible profit." By the beginning of the 20th century, water supply and sewage services were taken into public ownership and were the responsibility of local government, underpinned by central government subsidies to ensure an appropriate level of infrastructure investment at the same time as offering a fair price to the consumer.

That all began to change under the Conservatives from the mid-1970s onwards. In 1973 the Water Act reorganised and consolidated all the various publicly owned water and sewage companies into ten English  regional water authorities. By 1980 under Thatcher, investment in the water sector had been cut back to just one-third of what of had been in 1970 and by 1984 she was hatching plans to privatise the industry with a big sell-off. Public reaction was hostile, so the plan was shelved until she'd won re-election in 1987 after which water privatisation was pushed through with indecent haste. The ten regional water authorities were sold off for £7.6 billion to private consortia. The government used £5 billion to secure the sector's outstanding debts and gave the newly privatised water companies £1.5 billion out of public funds as a 'green dowry'. The father of an acquaintance of mine at the time told me gleefully that he and his fellow shareholders were getting money for nothing. That sell-off apparently made us the only country in the world to have a fully privatised water and sewage system.

When EU legislation governing water quality and waste disposal was tightened up, England's privatised companies baulked at having to find the £20-30 billion it would cost to bring this country's increasingly sub-standard (because of lack of investment) water and waste water infrastructure up to continental standards; they preferred to pay the fines for non- compliance if they got caught, as those fines only ran to millions. No wonder they were such strong advocates of Brexit in their attempt to escape from EU rules and sanctions.

Ever since the Conservatives' return to power in 2010 there has been a deliberate defunding of the bodies that are supposed to regulate the sector in this country, namely the Environment Agency and OFWAT. As a result the privatised water companies have been getting away with all sorts of technical misdemeanours and since BREXIT they have become increasingly blasé about the consequences.

In 2020 an academic study concluded that England's privatised water industry is a failed system that only benefits shareholders. Specifically it stated that: "the 40% above inflation real increase in English water bills since privatisation in 1991 has not been due to higher investment, as claimed by OFWAT and the companies themselves, but is a result of ever higher interest payments on £47 billion of debt, accrued due to £50 billion paid in dividends to shareholders." (That old getting money for nothing!)

After 30+ years of privatised water and sewage in England, we as customers pay the highest prices in western Europe for the worst quality water products and services, while the water companies pay their shareholders dividends that average around £1.2 billion each year. On top of that (no surprise) many of those shareholders make donations to the Conservative party. It is a case of cronyism sanctioning cynical exploitation of what should be considered a public health necessity and not a commodity.

Just how sub-standard and cavalier our private water companies are has been highlighted recently with the media spotlight being put on the deliberate dumping of raw (untreated) sewage into rivers and coastal waters. It is an awful truth that this has become literally a shitshow, and yet another awful truth that the water companies, their shareholders and the present government actually don't care. They are happy for it to be this way for as long as they can get away with it! Time for a change, methinks.

raw sewage in Cornish seas

I was in two minds whether to write a poem on such an unsavoury topic as this. In the end I couldn't resist, but with midnight's deadline fast approaching what follows is a raw outpouring and will need further treatment over the coming days. 

Surfing The Shitwave

Silver suited shareholders surf our latest shitwave

nonchalantly cresting the tide of public outrage

while we mere swimmers in the toxic swell

must suffer the ills. Not new, this cynical pisstake

being passed off as an operational mistake.

It's been going on for years. It's the curse 

of Tory cronyism, privatisation for personal profit.

These water fiefdoms, almost a law unto themselves

have underinvested, cut corners, flouted laws

but its been getting excrementally worse of late,

poor service, raw sewage in our rivers, seas, 

and on the beaches. All the while these silver surfers

coin billions in dividends to fatten the private purse.

It's high time for a clean-up. They should all be tipped

off their boards, ripped from their suited complacency,

stripped of their shares, made to suck it up like us. 

If you'd like to listen to the Jam's performance of "Heat Wave" click here 

Thanks for reading. Now wash your hands! S ;-)