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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Feargal Sharkey

Privatised water firms are imperilling our health and poisoning our rivers. Act now: flood the streets with rage

A black bird sitting on a red danger sign in the River Thames
‘Every single river in England is polluted.’ Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

You’ve been lied to, you’ve been misled, you’ve been extorted, you’ve been cheated, and you’ve been abused. For the last 35 years, you have been subject to nothing more than possibly the greatest organised ripoff perpetrated on the British people, and you have had little in return apart from greed, profiteering, financial engineering, political failure and regulatory incompetency. You’ve been had.

Thirty-five years after we were promised a utopian, market-driven vision of greatness, a future in which we would glory in the delights of an unlimited supply of clean water; in which our sewage would be quietly, efficiently collected, treated and disposed of, while our rivers, lakes and seas would teem with an abundant, diverse array of flora and fauna; and to top it all off we would have the cheapest water bills on Earth.

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