12 Comments
Nov 23Liked by Leah Gunn Barrett

The moment some politician suggests that Scottish Water should be privatised, is the moment we should secede from the Union, if we haven't already. Civil disobedience, the lot.

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Nov 23·edited Nov 23Liked by Leah Gunn Barrett

Thanks for this. There’s a lot here I didn’t know about. Heaven forbid that we are privatised even further. I think I’ll begin designing flyers for the ‘26 Holyrood elections along the lines of, ‘Vote for whoever you like as long as they don’t belong to an English party. We want our domestic water to stay Scottish and stay clean’. That alone should prevent an English takeover.

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Nov 24Liked by Leah Gunn Barrett

I was totally unaware of this situation , I note none of our politicians ever expose this information which should be widespread public knowledge, but as usual we are treated as mushrooms, if people were aware and looked at the situation re water meters and the despicable state of england's water companies they SHOULD be horrified , but will they grow a pair and vote for indy

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8 hrs agoLiked by Leah Gunn Barrett

Cultures are incompatible.

Anglo-saxon culture/values emphasize private ownership and private profit.

Scottish culture/values emphasize common ownership and the common good.

Which is why cultural assimilation ultimately fails in a colonial society (Memmi).

But, unfortunately in a colony 'only the cultural values of the colonizer are sovereign' (Memmi).

Mair Scots hiv tae feegure this oot; i.e. whit maks thaim different fae ither fowk! And why independence 'is (always) a fight for a national culture' (Fanon).

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6 hrs agoLiked by Leah Gunn Barrett

I like a lot of what Evo Morales has to say here...

https://youtu.be/YfrNXlYbwlY?si=9uk8Sh6pxMQNS95x

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Thumbs up to what you say Alf.

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Where does a Scottish private company source its water from and how does it deliver its supplies to customers?

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author

Hi Nick,

That's a good question. They will source it from the same pipelines as Scottish Water (SW) does for households. The difference is the money from customers is going to a private, not public, company, and probably won't be reinvested in the infrastructure at the same rate as SW nor maintained as well. In addition, I'm speculating that hiving off part of the system to a private concern places an additional burden on SW in terms of having to maintain the overall system but not get the revenue from commercial water customers. Maybe it was Labour's intent to half privatise the system because it would weaken and degrade the overall service. I just don't know - I'm speculating at this point, but it seems plausible. I'll try to find out more if I can.

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18 hrs agoLiked by Leah Gunn Barrett

Hi Leah

When I pay my water bill I am also paying Scottish Water todrain off my effluent and treat it in a treatment plant to a level that is good enough to discharge into our rivers or the sea. What is the private company doing for their money ?

It is time to scrap this whole arrangement.

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author

I completely agree.

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Thanks Leah. I knew that LabourUK HQ'd in England, when at the helm at Holyrood had sold off the non domestic part of Scottish Water, and some interesting stuff to do a bit of research on here. Can the CEO's of those private companies be found at Companies House, re their accounts and renumeration?

Some months back I was walking and scouring our local city river for pottery, as you do, when I spotted a guy inspecting downpipes from adjacent houses, asked him about a wee issue with our neighbours flooding the floors to put down cement (I know) which led to our flat being very damp, anyway, he was inspecting pipes in case of sewage leakage apparently, I asked if he worked for Scottish Water, he said he was an outside contracter for them. A bit O/T, but yes that did not surprise me.

If and heaven forbid LabCons/Tories, whoever, somehow take control of Holyrood in 2026 first thing they will do is sell off Scottish Water, lock, stock and very valuable barrel, don't be surprised if they already have some of that well planned and ready to be bagged. Private companies have added benefits by using publicly funded infrastructure...as we know. This is something again the SNP and others in the independence team shall we say...need to make very very clear to folks, because people do not want to be in same situation as in England re their privatised very very dirty water. Sigh, I still have friends (I know!) in England who insist on saying it's 'British water' that's full of 'sh*te'..and the times of late where I have seen tourists from abroad buying bottled water by the ton, in local shops..sigh!

I think I shared this already? Scary face emoji thing..

https://genevasolutions.news/explorations/the-water-we-share/the-dangerous-game-of-trading-the-future-of-water

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I should have said bottled not bagged...

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