Professor John Robertson OBA
In a classic primary school method (failed), the Herald writer gets the Scottish Water figures for sewage spill clear-ups, spots the falling trend, shrieks, then just ignores that and adds them all up to get a big number and still pretend it’s bad news.
The costs were:
2021 – £397 745
2022 – £539 717
2023 – £344 303
2024 – £136 268
Couldn’t be clearer, a sharply falling trend, down to less than a third in the last two years – rejoice? No?
I wonder, what have the costs in England been?
Later.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
WHATVA VERY APPT NAME FOR A CORRUPT LYING ‘NEWS HACK’
LikeLike
I am only mentioning this huge fine 👇 because Dŵr Cymru have the same mutualisation funding favoured by the Lib Dems favour. Since this is Labour-run Wales the party will be in favour.
I can see (should the Lib-Dems form a coalition with Labour in 2026) the mutualisation of Scottish Water will be at the top of their list of demands for joining.
The combined votes of the two parties may not be enough to get a scheme passed in the Scottish Parliament without the support of the Scottish Greens who could be pursuaded by tougher environmental regulations and ‘net zero’ targets.
Prices will invariably rise for customers which would lead to the installation of water meters.
https://naturalresources.wales/about-us/news-and-blogs/news/landmark-case-sees-d%C5%B5r-cymru-welsh-water-fined-135m-for-over-800-breaches-to-sewage-discharge-permits/?lang=en
“NRW (Natural Resources Wales) has downgraded Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water from a four-star (industry leading) company in 2020 to two-star (requires improvement) company in 2022 and 2023 as part of its annual Environmental Performance Assessment.”
LikeLike
The costs in England will be low because they simply don’t bother to clean up their privatised water. It’s contaminated.
The costs quoted there for Scotland are low because Scottish Water is not privatised, but definitely will be sold off, loch, stock, and barrel by next June, should any BritEng gang of thieves take control of Holyrood.
England’s running out of drinkable water, they ain’t going to let the huge resource that is Scotland’s water, run through their scheming thieving fingers, watch out Scotland.
SNP need to make a huge song and dance about all of the public services, infrastructure, resources, and industries, that will be removed, destroyed, sold off and scrapped in Scotland, by any combination of BritEng parties should they take control of Holyrood next year. Doesn’t bear thinking about but needs to be shouted out by SNP and the Scottish Greens starting now.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“the Herald ignores it’s own figures to get a big headline number..”
I am sure the Heralds circulation is just skyrocketing then 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
O/T apologies
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch tweeted this today (however as a tweet it reads, via length and content , more like a cross between a Tory press release and a party political broadcast script…..).
I have highlighted in bold both the Ha Ha ridiculous and nonsensical parts of her tweet below that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Tories , with her as leader, will potentially descend into political oblivion…..and yes this below was an actual tweet on her X account today written (apparently) by her:
Here it is…..prepare to be stunned and also amused (not Ha Ha just wtf kind of humour).
“My left-leaning, champagne-socialist friends were so excited at the prospect of a Labour government last year”.
“Of course we want you to win Kemi” they told me, “but after 14 years, it’s time for change”.
“Well they got that change and they are absolutely aghast at what’s happening to the country. It’s change for the worse. They thought they would be getting Tony Blair’s Labour or Gordon Brown’s Labour, instead they got Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour with Keir Starmer at the helm“.
“Starmer entered Downing Street with no plan, and he has been found out in the most brutal way possible. As he openly admitted last weekend, he is too easily distracted and doesn’t read what his advisers put in front of him. Labour have taken a wrecking ball to the British economy. They have waged war on business and overseen a rise in unemployment almost every single month that they’ve been in office”.
“Worryingly, the farcical events of the past week have blown an even bigger hole in the public finances. Further tax rises in the autumn now look inevitable”.
“Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have shown themselves to be serially incompetent and it’s working families who are set to pay the price“
“The laundry list of this government’s failures makes for grim reading. Snatching away winter fuel payments from vulnerable pensioners, only to u-turn when the political pressure got too much for them. Taxes raised to their highest levels since WWII. Surrendering British territory in the Chagos Islands – and paying £30 billion for the privilege”
“One of Keir Starmer’s first acts was to scrap the Rwanda deterrent, instantly removing the most effective means of dissuading illegal migrants from getting into small boats. Instead, Starmer promised to ‘smash the gangs’ and so far all he’s done is smash records for new arrivals. We’ve already passed 20,000 illegal Channel crossings in 2025, making this the worst year ever, and there are now more migrants being housed in asylum hotels on the taxpayers’ expense than there were when Labour took office. This has been a year defined by constant lies and u-turns. The only thing consistent about Keir Starmer is his inconsistency. He doesn’t listen and he doesn’t learn”.
“From grooming gangs to winter fuel, he arrogantly dismisses the principled and reasoned case we are making, only to later buckle to the spendthrifts in his party, who think that the workers and grafters can be squeezed forever to pay for benefits. Many Labour MPs have never worked in a private business let alone run one. They just don’t get it. His inability to get even modest reductions in spending increases (not a cut as most assumed) to the welfare bill shocked even me”
“I told Starmer that he would have our support if he brought forward serious welfare reforms that actually got costs down and got people into work, but instead he capitulated to his backbenchers”.
“It has only taken a year, but this is a Prime Minister already in a doom loop“
“Keir Starmer is in office but not in power.
“Left-wing Labour MPs can now smell blood, and the government’s authority has all but drained away”
“Ultimately, Starmer is a lawyer not a leader. He is a mediocre middle-manager seemingly intent on delivering his grim vision of managed decline for Britain. By contrast, I am an optimist. I believe in Britain’s potential. I want a complete renewal of our country so that it’s fit for the 2030s. We’re not going to waste our time in opposition bending the knee as Starmer did, we’re going to have a proper plan in place so we’re ready for government“.
“I’m doing all of this because it is now abundantly clear that only the Conservative Party knows what needs to be done to deliver a strong economy and a more robust society. We’re on the side of the makers – the business owners, the people running our public services – not the takers, such as the illegal migrants turning up on our shores and demanding handouts. By contrast, Labour and Reform are like two bald men fighting over a comb – both scrabbling around to borrow and spend even more and pump up our bloated welfare state. One party is too incompetent to get a grip, and the other is a one-man band telling people what they want to hear, without any details of how they will deliver”.
“I am the only party leader prepared to tell people the truth – that our country needs to live within its means and we need to get spending under control so we don’t burden our children with our debts, which is inherently unfair. It might only have been a year, but Labour have already done enormous harm to our country. We’ve got another four years of this. Britain deserves better“
The above reads like some altered reality and fantasy that lies within Kemi B’s heid.
So Kemi is pretending that this Labour government is a “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour with Keir Starmer at the helm” (stunned silence as well as laughter here) while most honest people are attacking and resenting this new Labour party mainly because they are just the exact same as both Kemi’s Tory party and also Reform UK party. So either she, KB, is really dumb or she is lying (or both).
Also most of the accusations she spews out against Labour are also applicable to her own party when they were previously in power and they had numerous useless leaders/PM’s…….
Like …..as a UK government the Tories took “a wrecking ball to the British economy“, made “working families pay the price” with their Tory policies and decisions, the Tories also had a “list of government failures“, “the Rwanda deterrent” was NOT , as she said “the most effective means of dissuading illegal migrants from getting into small boats” as it was both a hugely expensive, extremely ruthless and a complete waste of time as a failed and flawed policy, also some previous Tory governments were also “defined by constant lies and u-turns” , and how many Tory PM’s didn’t “listen” and so didn’t “learn”.
Also the Tory party are not renowned as a party that supports “workers” especially those workers who were looking for a decent living wage during a high cost of living crisis, very much thanks to the Tories who , as a former UK government, did there best to ensure that many workers did not get that fair wage rise.
Also Theresa May was also someone , who as a Tory PM, was “in office but not in power” as she too was subjected to others within her party, namely the infamous ERG within her party, also “smelling blood” so her “authority” was also “drained away” in her trying to get her Brexit agreement passed in the HOC.
Also was it not via Brexit that the Tories “managed (more) decline in Britain” , also the Tories were formerly in power and they had a chance to try to “deliver a strong economy and a more robust society” but they failed hence they got voted out last year.
Also it ‘s not only “Labour (that) have already done enormous harm to our country” as the Tories previously did their bit too with them instigating and implementing Brexit and constantly ignoring and overruling our Scottish government and taking away their devolved powers.
Also I disagree that “Britain deserves better” as some within Britain voted for all of this mess when they decided to vote both Tory and then Labour, but Scotland does not deserve any of this and so we, as a country, actually deserve far far better, alas that will only happen when some of us within Scotland finally realise that Kemi’s Tory party and also all other UK parties are the ones, who politically, make things so much worse for us within Scotland and never ever are we , or will we ever be, or indeed will our country ever be any better together with the rest of the UK.
That penny needs to finally drop with more people within Scotland sooner rather than later.
However it seems that Kemi is as disillusioned as many are within the Tory branch office here in Scotland, rewriting history, attacking others from their proverbial glass house and still assuming that all voters are numpties and so then they are all open to still believing lies, propaganda and also new Tory leaders whose Tory party, under their leadership, is flagging in the polls…..
Someone make it all stop for ****’s sake.
Liz S
LikeLiked by 3 people
*disillusioned
Could work, as she and the branch office must indeed be very “disillusioned” with all of the recent polls showing them in decline, but perhaps a far better word would be ‘delusional’ in the context of the rest of the final paragraph of my above comment, where I think ‘delusional’ is far better in reflecting both her and the Branch office’s brazen attitude , when they have the audacity to attack other parties with absolutely no sense of self awareness ( of if they do have then they go to great hypocritical lengths to try and hide it …..now that is a Ha Ha as they fail miserably ).
Liz S
LikeLiked by 1 person
When it comes to PMQT I dislike Keir Starmer more. You are right, she is one to talk, but she held her ground against him last Wednesday and even landed a few blows. I have never voted Conservative in my life but we don’t really know what goes on behind closed doors between all the parties. Wales is interesting because of the big changes to the Senedd and more devolution. The change to four yearly elections will make 2034 interesting. It suggests a clash with a GE, with Scotland missing out? Is that significant? Labour also has a knack for attracting bad publicity with their MPs falling out. But it all seems manufactured. It does give them an excuse to postpone the cuts, while we all wait the important elections next year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“When it comes to PMQT I dislike Keir Starmer more”
Indeed. I have often seen snippets online of Starmer adopting the same kind of ‘non response’ answers to any SNP MP asking a Q as happened with the various former Tory PM’s when the Tories were in power at WM.
Where all that the SNP MP’s get is a sarcastic ‘non response’ from Starmer, which then often prompts a big loud (and over exaggerated) laugh from Rachel Reeves, as she just loves her leader trying to belittle other MP’s, more so those MP’s from the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
We then also have the charade of supposed ‘Scottish’ MP’s feeding Starmer #SNPBAD lines, which is also an exact same scenario that we formerly witnessed with the Tories when they were in power at WM.
As it is not strange that when it is both the HOC ‘Scottish’ Q’s and PMQ’s all that the Scottish Labour MP’s want to do is to slate the SNP as opposed to asking any actual Q that is relevant to their area and constituents, it’s almost as if they want to pretend that everything under a Labour UK government is tickety boo for their constituents via all of the WM UK government’s reserved powers , policies and decisions .
As to Badenoch “holding her ground against him last Wednesday and even landing a few blows”, well that should be easy to do with him as he is making so many mistakes and U turns that he leaves himself open to being exposed as a catastrophic leader of the Labour party as well as being an awful PM.
As to Wales well many people there are unhappy at how Wales is being forgotten and so taken for granted by Labour and the great big Welsh let down that is Labour MP Stephen Kinnock (Son of Neil who is now a peer) has now had to admit that Wales is not treated fairly,
However Kinnock, the big Welsh let down, bases this unfair treatment upon a flawed comparison as he sees it as “questions about how fairly Wales is funded compared with Scotland” .
Once again here we go, blame Scotland and so drag us into what is very much a UK failure , as if we and other nations, minus England of course, are all those needing to be subsidised and so then are over indulged by the UK, while none of these UK politicians note our contributions , both financial via Scottish Taxes paid to the UK and too the essential and very profitable Scottish resources, that Scotland pays into and contributes to the UK Treasury.
Kinnock, like his Labour colleagues , is yet again passing the buck and not allowing anyone to concede that a centralised UK government, various ones, have for years neglected Wales and taht only now , when there is a potential threat posed by Reform UK and also Plaid Cymru in Wales against Labour, is there suddenly a realisation from Labour that Wales (like Scotland) is treated very badly by whoever is in charge at WM.
Why was an English steelmaking site , Scunthorpe, saved and not a Welsh one in Port Talbot ?
Oh well apparently just like in Scotland with the Grangemouth Refinery that was different according to Labour.
As saving English jobs at ‘British’ (English) Steel is more important for Britain (England and English MP’s).
As apparently it is Welsh and Scottish jobs that are expendable but not English jobs (as in GE’s the English people are regarded by UK political parties as being the Kingmakers as to whom governs at WM).
Then it was reported last month that “a new railway line between Oxford and Cambridge was classed as an England and Wales project” , meaning Wales “did not get a share of funding” , and earlier this year the Welsh’ FM said that “the allocation of HS2 funding was “unfair” for Wales”.
Of course the supreme chancer, Nigel Farage, who really cares not a jot about Wales but who is now trying to muscle in just in time for next year’s Welsh elections, has said “Wales has been let down'”. Like he cares , as all he wants is power at WM and then he too will strip away the powers of devolution to then centralise powers to WM and so very much will he and his party ” let down” Wales , Scotland and NI (as well as letting down the people of England too).
I truly hope that any numpties in both Wales and Scotland are in the minority as Reform UK are not the answer or indeed the solution to anything that both countries need now or in the future , indeed Reform UK gaining any traction within both the Welsh and Scottish parliaments would be to the detriment of both parliaments and very very much also to the people who live in both nations. (as will it also be a disaster and detrimental for their whole UK should Reform UK win in 2029 ).
The Welsh and Scots (and Northern Irish) , via a majority, can finally make it all stop just by not voting any longer for cr*p parties and also those parties who care not a jot for their nations if only Wales, NI (and we in Scotland) all begin, via a majority, to start to vote in such a way to show them all that we no longer trust them or want them to (over) rule us.
So we can make it all stop…..if and when some voters finally start to wake up and then start to see reality within the dysfunctional non United Kingdom.
Liz S
LikeLiked by 1 person
A bit bewildered by the article appearing to have two different headlines but think I figured it out – ” Scottish Water spent £1.4m on sewage blockages since 2021 ” is the original on 3rd July and the front page promotion of 4th July of ” More than £1.4m spent on cleaning up sewage spills ” with a subtext of ‘Bill for clearing Scotland’s lochs and rivers over past four years revealed’. Same story, both ‘Exclusive’… This was the original on 3rd July https://archive.ph/fe2Pj
It would appear the Herald is trying to keep the flagging ‘row’ story about SW exec payments alive and grabbing any opportunity, but they’re hardly going to make comparison with England…
LikeLiked by 1 person