2026: Week 9 - War in Iran and spotlight on water companies
It’s been another turbulent week with the US and Israel attacking Iran, who then retaliated by attacking US allies across the Middle East, including a drone strike on a UK RAF base in Cyprus.
Whilst the UK was not involved in the air strikes from America and Israel, the Prime Minster has allowed the US to use UK airforce bases to conduct defensive operations against Iran, targeting missile silos and stockpiles to prevent Iran continuing to target military and civilian sites across the Middle East.
No matter how the Prime Minister tries to redefine offensive as defensive, this is a slippery slope. He must not let Trump drag Britain into another prolonged war in the Middle East. Starmer must come to Parliament, set out the legal case in full, and give MPs a vote.
We have a duty to defend our brave British troops and citizens in the region, and that must be the focus of any operations. The UK must not be complicit in illegal military action.
Trump's offensive comparisons to Churchill reflect very badly on him. Churchill was a war hero; Trump is a draft-dodging bully now acting like an international gangster. He is the most corrupt President in the history of the US: he has repeatedly acted in his self interest at grave cost to the US and its allies. All this shows the special relationship is on ice while Trump is in the White House. The government needs to build much closer ties with our allies in Europe both on trade and defence, as Liberal Democrats have long been arguing.
Closer to home the recent tv drama Dirty Business has shone a spotlight on our water companies and the practices of dumping sewage in our rivers and seas. Although this has been known for a while, it often takes a measure like this docudrama to bring issues like this to the fore, in much the same way as we saw with the Post Office Horizon scandal.
I’m hoping that with this level of exposure, the Government will take steps to not only hold the water companies to account, but to force them to improve, and do better for their customers. Current fines for sewage dumping are laughable, the companies can make much larger sums for breaking the rules. Although the Government implemented legislation to force water companies to publish annual Pollution Incident Reduction Plans and Implementation Reports, the responsibility for testing still lies with the water companies themselves, rather than an external body, such as the Environment Agency. This amounts to water companies being allowed to “mark their own homework” which campaigners have long complained prevents the true scale of water pollution in the UK being revealed.
On a more positive note the SWW works that have dominated Dawlish for the past 18 months should go a long way to improve water quality in the area, and are finally nearing completion. I appreciate that at times it has been hugely frustrating for the residents, traders and visitors of Dawlish, but I believe that these works will benefit both locals and tourists alike by significantly reducing any sewage spills into the sea.