England’s water is appalling — and so is the politics keeping it privatised. Labour can’t win back trust and beat Reform whilst cosying up to the same profiteers who’ve bled our rivers dry. My latest in @gonuj.org: time to clean house. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... - ThreadSky

labourlewis.bsky.social • 7 days ago

England’s water is appalling — and so is the politics keeping it privatised.

Labour can’t win back trust and beat Reform whilst cosying up to the same profiteers who’ve bled our rivers dry.

My latest in @gonuj.org: time to clean house.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/10/fixing-water-england-labour-fightback-clive-lewis

Comments

seanfada.bsky.social•7 days ago

Excellent article. Bold action required.

pembertonoaks.bsky.social•7 days ago

Brilliant article Clive. You have encapsulated everything I have felt about this government.

ianafraser.bsky.social•7 days ago

Clive, this is very incisive, and it feels right to me. The time for half measures is long past and Labour with its huge majority should take forward radical transformation for the UK now. I have read your articles for some time, heard you speak. I think you could be a future Labour leader.

ijbbuster.bsky.social•7 days ago

Have you seen the BMC peer review of Cass Review? Worth a read!

https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-025-02581-7

crypttext.bsky.social•5 days ago

💯% This

gerllew.bsky.social•7 days ago

So how much to nationalise and how should we raise the finance ?

wullie-broon.bsky.social•1 day ago

Thank the lord that Scottish water is still in public hands. People in England are beeing ripped of to pay for private profits and shareholders dividends.
Thames Water should have been nationalised, not bailed out with £3bn pounds of public money. Oh. and F*ck so called Labour.

labourlewis.bsky.social•7 days ago

Labour hasn’t confronted Reform’s worldview—it’s validated it.

You can’t spend nine months echoing your opponent’s values and then act surprised when the public decides to go straight to the source.

aprilciate.bsky.social•7 days ago

So what are you going to do about it rather than loudly tutting?

gillmh.bsky.social•7 days ago

He does something by speaking up about it in the HoC on a regular basis. Frequently calls his own Party to account.

silentsounds.bsky.social•5 days ago

F*ck me. So we have Trump doing his best authoritarian dictator impression in America, Farage, and his UKIP 2.0 with Reform that are fascistic, racist, transphobic, and let's be real against anything that isn't English, white & a cis male.

Now we have Starmer & Labour enacting policies that...

silentsounds.bsky.social•5 days ago

... I, as a historian, could make a very good argument, are eugenics in all but name.

(Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population.)

Cutting benefits for disabled people, cutting carers allowance, blocking...

silentsounds.bsky.social•5 days ago

... carers from coming from outside of the UK, cutting winter fuel allowance, cutting addiction services, not providing free school meals, and cutting suicide services.

We & therefore they know that austerity cost 300k + lives. So they know that too. This leads me to believe that they are...

silentsounds.bsky.social•5 days ago

... making these choices with the aim of removing people (having them die) from the population that are not contributing taxes, military service (in a material way) to the country.

That is eugenics, a culling of those they see as lesser beings.

I'm not in any way saying that Labour are...

silentsounds.bsky.social•5 days ago

... Nazis or Starmer is Hitler.

It should, however, be noted that the Nazis started the holocaust with Aktion T4, which targeted those with disabilities and mental health issues.

It's extremely messed up that in 2025, we are facing this problem again.

We need an independent Scotland.

melvindukowski.bsky.social•7 days ago

being an American it's disheartening this shit is starting to spread to other countries.

benjits.bsky.social•6 days ago

We sit here in shock/awe at the stupidity of the Trump admin, yet this is what Labour are doing.

I didn’t vote for this. I didn’t vote Labour to get Reform governing anyway.

Spend this government pandering to the right and Labour will be in the same boat as the Tories in 4 years.

What a mess.

harree65.bsky.social•5 days ago

Exactly this. Starmer will alienate labour voters, and Reform voters won’t vote for him because he’s not Farage. This is stupid from Labour.

bradleysp.bsky.social•6 days ago

So, other than preaching to the converted, what do you intend to do about it? How are you going to get this government to start acting like a Labour administration and stop running scared from everything and everyone?

michele67.bsky.social•7 days ago

Why doesn’t McSweeney get this? I mean it’s not like the Tories tried it and it saw them trounced at the ballot box. It’s utter madness and will only ensure Labour is a 1 term government

give-i-grace.bsky.social•7 days ago

McSweeney gets it

give-i-grace.bsky.social•7 days ago

These are his/blair's/starmer's values

michele67.bsky.social•7 days ago

Christ that’s depressing ☹️

johnw60.bsky.social•7 days ago

Quite. It’s beyond depressing seeing a Labour government attacking the old, the disabled, the poor, refugees, people in the Third World. You’re giving us continuity Toryism not change which people voted for.

carolinejmolloy.bsky.social•5 days ago

Come on Clive. Time to join the Greens.

edpoole1975.bsky.social•5 days ago

Surely they are going to come after you Clive. Help us build the alternative.
https://join.greenparty.org.uk/

adrianfarrellat.bsky.social•7 days ago

Looks like you're in the wrong party Clive.

I'm sure you don't want to be in a party that validates Reform.

18thcenturyboy.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yes.
And yet Labour are not alone in ignoring all the evidence that supports this (cf. the German CDU´s electoral debacle).
Conclusion: Starmer & Co are as thick as bricks.

mrrobertbob.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think Starmer’s “Island of Strangers” speech is one of the biggest missteps in politics I have seen in a while and will haunt him and your party for quite some time.
The first thing that came to my mind on hearing it……👇

mrrobertbob.bsky.social•5 days ago

“Island of strangers” …….really? 🙄🤷🏼‍♂️.
I think that might be something he’ll regret saying.

siry4ever.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's very telling that the "left wing" of the Labour party is just going along with this. So far.

athenion.bsky.social•6 days ago

You got what you wanted at least. People said this would happen under starmer.

thoseos.bsky.social•5 days ago

After today's events, will you be remaining in the Labour party?

jeremybartlett.bsky.social•5 days ago

I know, and you surely know too, that Labour policies to hurt the poor, disabled, the environment and now immigrants is not what people in Norwich South want. Unless you can do something about this, we will be better off with a Green MP.

trevor0257.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-us-trade-deal-isnt-worth-the-paper-its-written-on-says-nobel-prize-winning-economist-13365655

trevor0257.bsky.social•7 days ago

Exactly Clive. You should back Ed Davey!! 👏👏👏

sarahmay1.bsky.social•7 days ago

Is there hope for change?

damonthedemon.bsky.social•7 days ago

No because although the likes of Clive here are spot on in this article, its all performative until they either sack Reeves and Starmer or change course drastically. You only have to look at the polls and locals to realise that.

prettyhatmachine.bsky.social•5 days ago

It does reflect poorly on you that you’re still a member of Far Right Labour?

Unless you have a plan to be rid of Starmer? Soon.

themanintheshed.bsky.social•7 days ago

The ultimate reminder.....

jacekolender.bsky.social•5 days ago

So how's that going mate?

lizwebster.bsky.social•7 days ago

Will the Labour Party do what is best for the country? Starmer and Reeves are Truss/Kwarteng in slower motion.

caxskye.bsky.social•7 days ago

They seem to have no-joined up or credible policies & the latest Starmer exhortation to ‘look forward’ seems not too different from Johnson & Sunak’s boosterism.
Anyone believing a mature safe pair of hands was installed in Downing Street on 5 July 2024 must be sadly disappointed.
Yes, time is……

caxskye.bsky.social•7 days ago

…needed to sort 14 years of Tory incompetence, cronyism & greed but realistic actions must be put in place, not a sheaf of aspirational pledges too readily broken.

happystrummer.bsky.social•7 days ago

Spot on

tudorinjordan.bsky.social•7 days ago

get tough with Starmer. . . and the useless Reeves, totally out of her depth . . . moderate, strong Labour, please. . .

mrterrychaos.bsky.social•5 days ago

He wolfwhistled some Enoch Powell rhetoric earlier. Maybe he's not capitulating due to weakness. Maybe he is just that immoral.

psychoserenity.bsky.social•5 days ago

Are you ready to leave the Labour benches? This isn't going to be fixed from within.

jon-elsa.bsky.social•5 days ago

The PM is in danger of alienating Labour's core support, their MPs & the public at large. This rhetoric is an appalling look and plays right into Reform's hands.
Instead of embracing the party's core values, he appears set on making the party indistinguishable from the right over immigration!

omegajak.bsky.social•5 days ago

What are you doing, today, to get rid of Starmer? What concrete steps are you taking to replace this racist leader? Because at the moment voting labour is unconscionable, and it'll stay that way as long as he's in charge.

tofueating1.bsky.social•5 days ago

You're too good, too honest and too thoughtful for Starmer's "Labour party". He has zero political nouse and he has never spoken for me.

recordstoliveby.bsky.social•4 days ago

Resign Clive, staying legitimises them

keef1951.bsky.social•3 days ago

Staying also enables fightback - possibly the only reason I remain a member of the Labour Party

recordstoliveby.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think you're being naive, there is no future for the left in the Labour Party, let it die

inamac73.bsky.social•5 days ago

Clive jeezo what's happened to your party. Utterly shameful and now sounding more Reform than Tory. If Farage gets in this is on Starmer

edparnell.bsky.social•7 days ago

They have a big problem in that they absolutely love the prestige of being associated with these people. Much more so than being in any way associated with the people they are supposed to represent. It's sad they have become Tory Lite.

antonyillahiwarren.bsky.social•6 days ago

I joined the Green Party, after a lifetime of voting Labour. #BackZack

martin-stefan24.bsky.social•7 days ago

So the question is...why can't they. What's in it for them? Who's scaring them off?!!

damonthedemon.bsky.social•7 days ago

Starmers Labour are here to maintain the wealth and power of the few, who pull their strings and dictate policy. Reeves is protecting capital and those who own said capital and has little or no interest in the wellbeing of any of us. She was a banker, trained by bankers and in hoc to bankers. Simple

damonthedemon.bsky.social•7 days ago

Where government appears to manage only in the interests of the wealthy, financial giants and corporations" For how else does a Labour government conclude that pensioners and disabled people should be sacrificed to preserve a fiscal rule 1/2

damonthedemon.bsky.social•7 days ago

....created to ensure the maintenance of wealth for those who already have it?

This above is nail head on! Its what all of you Labour MPS should be shouting at Reeves about. Until you either get rid of Reeves or make her see sense, you are done. Over. One term Wonder. Thanks for a great article

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply