When Margaret Thatcher made England and Wales the only countries in the world with fully privatised water, the naysayers argued it was a terrible idea. Today, everyone agrees privatisation has been a roaring success.
It has delivered an impressive rise in customer bills which has coincided with an equally impressive rise in shareholder profits. These improvements were delivered through efficiency savings, such as not building any reservoirs since 1992 and forgetting about silly ideas like sewage treatment. Thanks to neoliberalism, turds are now a common sight at our beaches and marine life is not.
If that wasn’t impressive enough, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has confirmed the UK is officially the world’s dampest desert. Three-quarters of the nation has been plunged into drought, despite the fact it constantly pisses down. You are therefore banned from gardening and bathing your children so that data centres don’t go without.
No one knows why countries that contain actual deserts don’t experience the same difficulties we do. For example, Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a hose pipe ban. Unfortunately, we live in a place where the weather breaks everything. Sunshine? Drought. Rain? Floods. An inch of snow? The whole country closes for some reason.
The only weather the UK can actually cope with is grey and miserable. Any deviation leads to immediate national collapse. If we didn’t have such a brilliant water system, we’d be in serious trouble. But thankfully, our system is built to protect corporate profits, no matter what. Everything is secondary to that, including your ability to drink.
Thankfully, Andy Burnham is showing leadership on the matter. He is taking the emergency step of doing absolutely nothing. When questioned about nationalisation, the Prime Minister calmly explained that his donors won’t allow it.
In a bizarre coincidence, the system that allows them to personally profit is the only one that could possibly work. Sure, we could end up with crop failures and food shortages, but I’m sure things would’ve been worse if Jeremy Corbyn had got his way.
Obviously, this is not a systemic problem, it’s a technological one. Virtually all our rainfall is lost because we can’t make pipes that don’t burst. Water companies have absolutely no incentive to stop leaks and every incentive not to, but I’m confident this has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter.
Extract from a Brazilian tree can neutralize the COVID-19 virus, underscoring nature’s value as a source of defenses against global pandemics.
Scientists have found that leaves of Copaifera lucens, a tree native to Brazil’s threatened Atlantic Forest, contain natural compounds called galloylquinic acids. These compounds can neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The findings appear in the journal Scientific Reports.
Unlike many traditional antivirals that target only a single viral protein, the galloylquinic acids act through a multitarget mechanism. They attack the virus on several fronts at once. This approach makes it much harder for the virus to mutate and develop resistance, offering a more robust barrier against current and future strains.
The research, coordinated by Professor Jairo Kenupp Bastos of the University of São Paulo, showed that the compounds block the virus from entering cells, interfere with its replication, and help regulate the body’s inflammatory response.
The discovery also highlights the importance of protecting diverse ecosystems. Brazil is home to nearly a quarter of the world’s plant species. Loss of these forests could eliminate potential life-saving compounds before they are ever identified and studied.
[El-Morsi, R. M., Al-Madboly, L. A., Bastos, J. K., et al. (2026). Bioactive galloylquinic acids from Copaifera lucens as dual inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 Spike and RdRp proteins. Scientific Reports, 16, 4521. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-25217-8]
Dear @JeremyClarkson I saw this on my feed on another platform and instantly thought you needed to see it.
"Jeremy Clarkson thinks people who receive benefits should have to send a weekly thank you email to a randomly chosen working person, explaining what they did with the money, or have their payments stopped.
So here is mine. If you’d like to give it a share to help Jeremy see it, that would be great.
Dear Jezza,
Thank you for your concern about my contribution to society.
I should say first that you were aiming this at young people you believe are sitting at home doing nothing.
But you wrote it as a blanket rule applying to everyone whose benefits are paid.
That includes more than thirteen million pensioners, millions of people who receive benefits while working, who may find themselves being ordered to thank another benefit claimant, and me.
I receive PIP.
That money goes towards the Motability car I use to travel to work.
It is not a free car. It is not even my car. I exchange the mobility part of my PIP to lease it.
The car takes the lot.
Which is awkward, because that same payment is also meant to help cover the additional costs of being disabled, including a wheelchair that is actually usable for my job and hearing aids that allow me to do it.
There is nothing left for either.
I chose the thing that gets me to work.
That car enables me to work and, because I can work, I now pay considerably more in tax than I have ever received in PIP.
But my contribution does not end with my own tax bill.
I have built programmes that hundreds of people now use to earn a living.
They pay tax too.
Those programmes have helped thousands of people overcome anxiety, return to their lives and, in many cases, return to work.
Then there are all the people supported by the coaches and practitioners I have trained.
That is what disability support can do when it is designed to enable people rather than humiliate them.
My PIP did not disappear into some great benefits black hole.
It helped provide the transport that allowed me to work, build a business, create opportunities for other people and contribute far more than I could ever have done without it.
But as we are exchanging thank you letters, perhaps you could send me one too.
I paid my television licence throughout the years the BBC gave you the platform that made you famous.
I now pay for Amazon Prime, which helps fund the television programme about your farm.
I do not choose to watch it.
But that is how society works, Jeremy.
We all contribute towards things we may never personally use because the entire country would fall apart if every payment had to provide us with an individual benefit.
Perhaps you could also thank the taxpayers whose public services and infrastructure support your businesses.
And while you have the stationery out, perhaps you could explain the farm.
In 2021, you told The Times that avoiding inheritance tax was “the critical thing” in your decision to buy land.
In 2024, when that became rather inconvenient, you said it had never been true. You claimed you had actually bought the farm because you wanted somewhere to shoot and that tax avoidance had simply sounded like a better story at the time.
I am not sure which version helps your argument.
It is funny how public support and clever tax arrangements are treated as perfectly respectable when they benefit wealthy people.
Yet when a disabled person receives help to leave the house, go to work and participate in society, you think they should be made to perform gratitude.
So thank you for your concern, Jezza.
I hope my licence fee, Amazon subscription, taxes and contribution to the economy have all been gratefully received.
Please send your thank you letter weekly, along with a full breakdown of how you spent the money.
If it is not sufficiently fulsome and effusive, I assume your income will be stopped.
That is only fair."
Crop yields down, our countryside scorched and over 2800 people are dead due to this summer's heatwaves.
Meanwhile fossil fuel giants are raking in record profits.
We must end this rampant profiteering, and cut fossil fuels from our energy mix as soon as possible.
It was Buddha who famously said, "In order to achieve enlightenment, you tie a prostitute to a radiator and then beat him with a metal chain. Once your reputation is ruined beyond repair, you write a song in support of genocide, because it is only Zionist Jews that will have no moral qualms about your past behavior."
"Rape followed by the murder of Vietnamese women was so common that US soldiers had a special term for it: double veteran."
Fuck July 4th and fuck America
Stop the ‘Great Israeli Real Estate Event’ taking place in London on 14 June. Palestinian land is not for sale. Such sales are illegal & unethical. This event should not be allowed to go ahead
Wes Streeting on TV: " The Green party is now riddled with what we expelled" You mean left wing politics? No, he keeps going with the antisemitism farce
Men will walk around shirtless, piss in public, and send unsolicited d!ck pics without shame, but suddenly society loses its mind when a woman breastfeeds her own BABY.
Mick Lynch "Zack Polanski isn't inciting hatred for Jews he believes he is an agent of peace and that Israel is carrying out Mass Murder in Gaza and the West Bank, and I believe that too."
When Mick Lynch speaks sense, he speaks sense.
"did Palestine break your brain" YES MOTHERFUCKER! Watching pieces of children get loaded into trash bags for a fucking year before the election SHOULD have broken yours too, and that's the fucking problem.
Israel is a rogue state and our government should treat it as such.
Our Government should have suspended diplomatic and trade relations long ago but if not now, when?
This is how Spaniards in the town of El Burgo, in Málaga province, Andalusia, marked Holy Week “Easter Sunday” yesterday—by detonating an effigy of Netanyahu, wanted as a war criminal before international courts, according to Spanish journalist @fonsiloaiza.
NOW: Over half a million people marching together for Palestine and against the far right in London . One of the biggest demonstrations in British history 🇵🇸