As drought blights the UK, our politicians have their heads buried in the sand

theguardian.com:

A drought has officially been declared across vast swathes of England. Rivers and reservoirs are evaporating in front of our eyes. Water may soon be rationed and crop irrigation restricted. Drought, and the extreme heat that exacerbates it, isn’t some occasional freak occurrence that can be brushed off as “super scorchio” fun once or twice a year. It’s a consequence of years of inaction on the climate emergency. This is producing a perfect storm of energy insecurity, food supply chaos and extreme weather that is wreaking havoc on society.

Getting a firm grip on this crisis requires both immediate and long-term solutions. Our lame duck government is offering neither. It’s clear that the privatisation experiment for water companies has failed. They’re fit for profit, not for purpose. The head of Thames Water – the company responsible for the supply fiasco at Northend in Oxfordshire – is set to receive a £3.1m “golden hello” for signing on as CEO. English water firms across the board have handed over £72bn to shareholders in dividends.

Ed Vaizey claimed on Good Morning Britain this week that “you get better run companies in the private sector”. Are these the same companies that dithered over hosepipe bans for fear of annoying customers, further intensifying our drought crisis? Companies that failed to meet their own targets on fixing leaks and faulty mains pipes? Companies whose incessant dumping of raw sewage has blighted our waterways?

All that profit, yet investment in our waterways is falling woefully short. Not a single new reservoir has been built in the past three decades, and our Victorian water pipes are being replaced at a rate 10 times slower than our European neighbours. So we need immediate action. The Green party