Politics

The BV magazine, September ‘22 POLITICS

Small government? Big bills!

Light-touch government is an excellent theory, says North Dorset Green Party’s Ken Huggins. But in practice it just doesn’t hold water. Or sewage.

The ideology that promotes ‘light-touch’ government sounds appealing. It makes for simpler government, with a reduced role for the state, minimal bureaucracy, reduced public sector borrowing and reduced taxation. The claim is that industry, free from the restrictions of red tape, can get on unhindered with the business of supplying the market with what people need. Bad businesses will fail, and only good businesses will succeed. Sounds good, but there is a fatal flaw … human greed. A ‘good’ private company is generally considered to be one which primarily focusses on maximising the money made for its shareholders and management, putting profit before people and planet. Take the water industry in England, overseen by the government regulator OFWAT and the Environment Agency which are both considered to be poorly resourced under lighttouch government.

Polluted bonus

The industry was privatised in 1989 by a Tory government, under the pretext that the private sector would inject the cash needed to upgrade old Victorian sewers and fix leaky mains water pipes ... That went well, didn’t it! 30 years on, a 2020 report found the businesses had been loaded up with £48bn of debt to help fund dividends of £57bn, while customers’ water bills increased 40 per cent above the rate of inflation. In 2021, despite grossly polluted foul water being discharged uncontrolled into our rivers and seas for 2.7 million hours, water company executives received an average £100k bonus on top of their salaries. The water industry is not the only one raking in excessive profits. What we need is big bold honest government, with people and planet protected by appropriate regulations that are rigidly enforced by properly funded public authorities. The Green Party is calling for essential services like water and energy to be brought into public ownership. Not easy, we know, but the plundering has to stop.

The New Green Deal is already planned

A plan to tackle the energy crisis was drawn up by a cross-party group of MPs in February and is ready to go, says Labour’s Pat Osborne

August’s column about Blandford Town Council’s ‘motion for the ocean’ already seems a lifetime ago. Within a few short weeks, that glimmer of hope was eclipsed by a tsunami of raw sewage engulfing our beaches, rivers, and the marine habitats around our coastline. The root cause of this? Greedy water company bosses prioritising shareholder profits and their own inflated paycheques over basic public health needs. It’ll be lost on nobody that we’re in deep ‘sewage’ with our other utilities too. Since 2010, under the Tories, energy prices have spiralled out of control. In September, bills will almost double with the promise of even more increases to come. People across North Dorset, who already have nothing else to give, are being asked to cough up yet more, so that a handful of shareholders can make even more profit.

Ready-to-go plans

If that isn’t bad enough, the same Tories who passed the laws which allowed the water companies to do so much harm, are papering over their decisions to slash investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy from wind, waves, sun, and tides – implying instead that environmental policies are to blame for energy hikes, and that fracking and more North Sea gas and oil are the answer. What we really need is a plan that includes windfall taxes on the huge profits of energy companies, a plan to insulate homes to keep energy bills down, and to bring energy back into public ownership so we’re all in control of our future. Fortunately, such a plan exists. The legislation was written in February by a cross-party group of MPs and is ready to go. We can only live in hope that our new prime minister (whoever that will be) will deliver it. Until then, I’ll hold my nose as water company bosses pump more sewage into the environment – and cash into their pockets – but I won’t hold my breath.

Fridges, fairs and fewer walls

Local fairs can lift a community – but there’s no hiding from the anxious mood that grips the Vale’s residents, says North Dorset Lib Dems’ Mike Chapman

At the peak of COVID, we recognised the difficulties families were facing – we saw the successful roll-out of community fridges in Poole. There was nothing similar operating at the time in North Dorset, so we decided to pave the way and set one up in Sturminster Newton. Community fridges have the double benefit of reducing food waste and stretching household budgets. Other schemes have since developed including fridges in Shaftesbury and Blandford and, of course, The Vale Pantry in Sturminster Newton. Two years on, we have decided to hand our community fridge over to The Emporium team who I am sure will be able to stock it more effectively from more local sources. The very best of luck to them with this and all their other initiatives. On another positive note, noone does a Fair quite like Dorset, do they? In quick succession we have the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show, The Oak Fair, The Great Dorset Steam Fair and the Sturminster Newton Cheese Festival. It always makes me smile that the Cheese Festival was borne out of a collective fury at the closure of the town’s creamery and cheese factory. This was a very Dorset response: an attachment to all things rural, coupled with a blend of stubbornness and entrepreneurial flair.

An anxious mood

We found the G&S Show especially good. It gave us the opportunity to ask people about their priorities and to listen to a wide range of thoughts and perspectives. Although the Show with all its attractions served to lift most people’s mood, there was no hiding from the underlying anxiety about life and the world at large. And now have the winter of our discontent. We face a nasty enemy, multiple threats to our standard of living, a poor economic outlook and strikes and go-slows every which way you look. We ought to be pulling together but we are a million miles from that. Boris’s legacy will be dominated by that failure. Despite his ‘levelling up’ vocabulary, he has undoubtedly increased the polarisation of the nation. Blue wall, red wall, whatever colour wall; please can we just have fewer walls? Please would the new PM also address another noticeable polarisation – that between customer satisfaction and shareholder satisfaction. Across rail, energy, water, communications, the media and even the ports, a proper balance seems to be out of reach. Is this because the public as customers have so few real choices? Or is it due to a failure to regulate profits effectively? We need to find answers and properly invest in solutions before the roving eye of capitalism settles on the NHS and begins to espouse more and more salami-slicing of its routine, less complex activity, engendering counter-productive competition that distracts doctors, nurses, technicians, support staff and managers alike from their real purpose.