Good piece @ecnewton.bsky.social and I agree it seems like a model based around trusts and their governance model is likely. The risk though is that the governance model becomes what we focus on, not the services, and that the governance becomes quite remote from the frontline in neighbourhoods.

I’m no fan of Brexit but blaming Brexit for the failings of domestic regulation of the water industry lets our own governments (of all colours) off the hook too easily. This was all predictable (and predicted by Jean Schaoul among others) over 20
years ago.

Maurice Whittle penalty(what a left foot he had) and of course it should have been 2 but the referee missed a ‘goal’ that came back out odd the stantion. Great day

Lol, you weren’t to know, the jibes are usually cheap, mine were fully paid in the playgrounds of North Manchester in the 1970s

I’m an Oldham Athletic fan so get a free pass on Man U jibes

United’s fanbase also proves no connection with Manchester is necessary…

Totally agree, the shame is this kind of rhetoric does nothing to help the victims, for them we should be asking why so little has been done to implement the recommendations from Baroness Jay’s (and other) report(s).

I agree and I know you’re not quiescent. It may be though there isn’t a ‘fix’, and looking for the ‘fix’ is distraction therapy because we can’t agree on the ‘alternative’…

If there is no ‘right’ answer we might as well just say ‘this is wrong, unacceptable and dangerous’. Not sure taking the more nuanced, grown up response is going that well

Cameron was tactically complacent. The progressives though had spent too long by then pandering to anti EU sentiment from the late 90s. I ran general election campaigns for the Lib Dems and we were deliberately EU ambivelent to win marginals. We thought we could put the genie back in the bottle!

Look forward to it, don’t think we can leave it to the political parties/media.

Oh yes, I completely agree @profjanegreen.bsky.social they have to be challenged on every front. What would be an effective way to challenge do you think?

I agre though problem we face is that for quite a long time (EU elections, Brexit and the 2024 GE) Reform (and its predecessors) have done well enough for the breakthrough narrative to be credible. We’ve spent 20 years creating a real threat out of an illusion by obsessing about strategy not policy