The #Tories are flushing the UK down the toilet.

I haven't posted on here for a while partly because things are so dystopian and reading the news at the moment is hard work. The situation in the UK seems to deteriorate by the hour, and with the wars, in Ukraine and Yemen, it's pretty bleak elsewhere. Covid is still raging through the population and all protections have been dropped. The NHS is on its knees. I'm the only one in the village still wearing a mask. If it was just covid that would be bad enough but the cost of living crisis continues to damage the lives of millions.

Food banks are already running out of food, inflation hits 10.1%, and this is before two massive hikes in the energy price cap in October and January, which is expected to hit two-thirds (I suspect more) of the UK population. Bills could be as high as £4666 in January. Next, we have the sewage scandal in England. Privatised water companies are being allowed to pump billions of gallons of raw sewage into our rivers and the sea. At peak holiday time many beaches on the South coast and Devon and Cornwall have alerts that tell people not to get in the sea.

Then of course there is the elephant in the room - the climate crisis. England and Wales have been hit by a drought and there are hosepipe bans in the South and Yorkshire. It's hardly rained here in the past few weeks. The water companies are losing billions of gallons of water due to leaks because of underinvestment in infrastructure whilst their executives get massive bonuses, and, as We Own It reported:

"The private companies that were supposed to bring in investment to our water sector instead took out £72 billion in profits and loaded up the water companies with over £50 billion in debt."

We also have the obscenity that is the Tory leadership campaign. While Boris Johnson holidays abroad and at chequers, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are trying to out-fascist each other to appeal to the 0.3% of the population who will pick the next PM. They gibber about crushing unions, cutting taxes, and growth, growth, growth - none of which are the answer to our current problems. See also this on proposed charter cities - it's important.

As I write this, RMT members are on strike today. Other unions representing transport staff, postal workers, and bin collectors are also on strike. The postal workers and college lecturers are set to join them soon and nurses may be balloted on industrial action. A new campaign - Enough is Enough - has been set up by the RMT, CWU, Acorn, and others with 5 demands:

1. A real pay rise
2. Slash energy bills
3. End food poverty
4. Decent homes for all
5. Tax the rich

I've read that over 400,000 people have signed up (including me) and I hope this initiative will lead to a political movement that can bring about some real change, given that Labour is still failing to offer effective opposition.

Forty years of neoliberalism including privatisation, deregulation, and lower taxes on the rich have led us to a point where our economy is heading for a collapse. I do hope that angry citizens will spray No. 10 with raw sewage but please wait until Truss is in residence!

I could write a lot more but I'll finish with this. Richard Murphy has come up with proposals to get us out of the crisis we are in and I recommend you read them.