The Blame Game: MPs vs. Water company executives

 

Greetings! ‘It is the economy stupid.’ Bill Clinton opined again and again in his relentless pursuit of the White House. I do not doubt for a moment that the man from Little Rock was right then and will be right again in this, our probable UK election year. But what of pollution and the water industry? Last year the problems of the water industry were very much de la jour; you’d have likely found it on most lists of top five issues concerning voters. Today, and as the election approaches, I suspect the state of our rivers and coastline, will drop down the running order. Let me tell you why this is. Firstly, flooding is back, a water management issue which is more emotive than dirty rivers. Deluges are the nightmare of every Environment Agency PR person. It is the issue the EA throws the vast bulk of their £1.3 billion budget at. It is also the issue where the truth will not speak its name. In the past quarter of a century we have built, or more accurately had built for us, over a million homes in flood risk areas – to misquote the Kevin Costner baseball film, Field of Dreams, build them and they will flood.

House of Commons committee bruisers l-r Darren Jones MP, Cathryn Ross Thames Water CEO and Barry Gardiner MP

Next, there is only so much outrage society has in its emotional bank. Currently, and understandably, the public have moved on from pollution to the Post Office scandal which in some ways reflect each other. Now, I am not for one moment trying to equate the personal grief of the Post Office managers to anything that has happened in the water industry, but the theme of a large organisation, take your pick of Ofwat, the EA or any one of the water companies, wilfully steamrollering the evident truth to conceal malpractice is the common theme. Thirdly, the absence of a clear set of publicly agreed solutions is hampering the debate as to how we solve our pollution problems. To their credit the Liberal Democrats have issued draft manifesto commitments on this topic but it is hard to conclude anything other than that their ‘solutions’ are much more than a few bullet points for further discussion. Inevitably, once the election comes around the debate will descend into water company bashing and nationalisation vs. privatisation. If you want a taste of this watch the MPs (if you have 15 minutes of your life you do not need back .... link here) on the House of Commons Select Committee trying to take chunks out of Thames Water executives. Opinions differ as to who came out of it best but for my money the MPs were badly damaged by the Thames counterpunching. Perhaps most illuminating were the exchanges with Cathryn Ross, currently Thames Water CEO who was in a previous life, until 2014, Chief Executive of water regulator Ofwat. Essentially, so went the line of reasoning by Labour MP Darren Jones, Ross should, issue a grovelling apology because there was a direct line of travel from her decisions whilst at Ofwat to the state of Thames Water finances today. She refused, and not unreasonably, pointed out that Ofwat can only operate within the terms of reference handed to them by government. She was too savvy to suggest that it was the government who should really be doing the apologising but it is the very point that really takes us to the nub of the pollution debate. Historically, governments have seen the water industry as a too hard to handle problem. They knew it did, and does, require vast expenditure, running to hundreds of billions. You can pay that in one of two ways: taxes or bills. The Thatcher government dodged that first bullet by privatising the industry but neutered capitalist creativity by creating the regulator, outsourcing the hard decisions whilst at the same time setting terms of reference that has created unstainable downward pressure on the second. Subsequent governments, of all flavours, have been content to go along with this deceit accepting no accountability for perpetuating the very regulatory framework that is failing rivers and anything to do with public water. If anyone needs to apologise it is the MPs themselves who have it in their gift to change Ofwat at the stroke of a pen.

More fishin' films It seems a great many of you had watched, and enjoyed, Mending The Line, the film I wrote about last time. The article prompted a flurry of other recommendations for fishing related films. Here they are, with the health warning that I have not watched all of them in their entirety, so if they are dogs do not shoot the messenger. The River Why (2010) Starring William Hurt, and the later-to-be-wife of Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and Zach Gifford who plays a young man in a coming-of-age tale of his quest for an elusive rainbow trout, which is a metaphor for his internal search for self-knowledge. More, and better, fishing scenes than Mending The Line with the ending wrapped up with a pretty bow. Watch here .... Gone Fishin' (1997)   Somebody, somewhere was serious about this film that cost $53 million to make but grossed just $19m, gaining a miserable 4% approval on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 2.3/10. None of that might inspire you to watch this comedy caper with Joe Pesci, Danny Glover, Rosanna Arquette and Willie Nelson as himself so I have linked you to the 10 minute You Tube version. Watch here .... Pyscho Pike (1992)  The plot summary reads, toxins in a lake drive a big pike crazy and it suddenly begins to attack and devour cottagers. The one review I found said, “The plot is (of course) ridiculous - but hey - it's a horror story about a deadly pike. Nice locations, and of course, chilling scenes of pike attack - what more could you want from such a production?” This Canadian film seemed to have been lost to mankind but I unearthed this archive copy of the full 86 minutes. Watch here .... Man’s Favourite Sport? (1964) This has all the sexist tropes of the 1960’s with Rock Hudson, a successful writer of a how-to-fish manual who has never fished, who is inveigled into a fishing competition by his boss who is unaware of his inability. It was a big hit, the 24th highest grossing film of the year, and subsequently has a 70% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. Great songs and score by Henry Mancini. But goodness, it is of its time, so if you watch it with a teenager prepare them with a trigger warning. The opening credits give you a good idea why the film title has a question mark. Watch here ..... Beavers to the rescue! Is there anything a beaver cannot do? I’d swear that the pro-beaver lobby push out a news release every day eulogising as to the benefits for whatever the hot topic is on that given day. I am confident we will shortly see them donning UN peace keeper berets in the Middle East. Needless to say the cure all solution to the recent floods is, you’ve guessed it, more beavers! Aside from the unassailable logic that it is constrictions to the free flow of water such as bridges, overly narrowed water courses or dams that causes water to back up to create flooding you have to wonder how the good citizens of the Somerset Levels will regard the arrival of these invasive rodents.

Now, despite what you will read, flooding and extreme weather events are no recent phenomena. Read my article in The Spectator. The flooding we see has little to do with climate change or the lack of beavers; even 2023, a very wet year, has only seen annual rainfall increase from an average of 32 inches to 41 inches, 27% above the norm. The simple fact is that for 4,000 plus years we have managed our rivers with remarkable aptitude, aware of the chaos of which Mother Nature is capable. However, in the post-war construction boom we have pressed into service land entirely unsuited for housing and created a built landscape that exacerbates the impact of rain water that, in centuries past, would have dissipated unremarked. As you well know I am no fan of the Environment Agency but how can anyone seriously suggest that they, or any of our forefathers, would not have worked out by now that a few random wood and mud dams to be our saviours instead of the £1.1 billion the EA spent in 2021? They did not work it out because it is patently untrue.

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page. 1) On this day in 1363 Edward III passed the Sumptuary Laws. Was does sumptuary mean? 2) Bill Clinton took Presidential office in what year? 3) Which English rock star, more famous for Driving Home for Christmas, released Gone Fishing in 1991?

Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

Quiz answers: 1) Laws that limit private expenditure on food and personal items. 2) 1993 3) Chris Rea

A Statue to Piscator

 

Dear Simon, I read this terrific review in The Spectator for a newly published book More Than A Game: A History of How Sport Made Britain by David Horspool, a journalist who covers history, archaeology and sport. I am probably knackering any chance of any future good review for any future book of mine in the Times Literary Supplement of which Horspool is an editor, by saying his book is a hard read. To start with the woke-police have clearly got to the marketing, the blurb on the fly leaf trying to whip up the angry furies of race, class, empire and wealth in the evolution of British sport. It is also not, as I discovered, a book to read cover to cover. It is just a bit too detailed, with the history often too granular, perhaps reflecting the inner archaeologist of Horspool. But all that aside if you have an interest in horse racing, cricket, boxing, rugby, golf, tennis, cycling or football each has a dedicated chapter with, more or less, equal coverage given to each. Obviously, the omission of angling is a clear black mark against Horspool (!) though I suspect he might argue ours a pastime rather than a sport though I think in return that we could readily counter argue that fishing, which predates each and every one of those listed above, has a cultural importance within the British sporting tradition.

Winchester Cathedral

In the tennis section I came across a reference to the Sporting Statues Project which, in case you were unaware, lists all 324 public sculptures in display in Britain of sportsmen, sportswomen and animals (Frankel has four listings) dating from 500BC (the discus thrower in British Museum in case you ask) up to statues due to be unveiled next year. Football, unsurprisingly, dominates with 131 sculptures with nearly every other sport represented, to a greater or lesser degree except you will not be surprised, anything for angling. Which had me thinking, if we were to have a statue, who or what should it be of? Halford in his deckchair outside the Oakley Hut? Skues scowling into the Itchen at a trout that had the temerity to ignore his nymph. Walton in his 17th century garb studying to be quiet? Frank Sawyer with his bare hook? A leaping salmon? Dame Julia Berners in her nun outfit? Glaucus the Greek God of fishing? Mr Crabtree? The late Queen Mother, probably the most prolific royal catcher of salmon? Or maybe we go all reflective with the unknown angler, a hunched figure on a stool with a rod and float lost in the perfect reverie that is sometimes fishing? Of course, choosing the subject matter would almost be the easy bit compared to choosing the location. Nowhere comes easily to my mind. However, us anglers do not have to feel too hard done by because we have what few disciplines have, namely a chapel to our sport. And not just in any minor religious building but rather one in a grand and revered cathedral, the resting place of kings and once the crowning capital of Britain. I am, of course, talking of the Izaak Walton chapel in Winchester Cathedral, more properly known as the Chapel of St John & Fishermen Apostles but also sometimes going by the name the Silkstede Chapel.

l: Izaak Walton River Itchen r: Izaak Walton & Charles Cotton River Dove.

It is hard to ascertain how, in 1683, Walton came to be buried in Winchester Cathedral. Yes, The Compleat Angler was a best seller of its time but its fame as a seminal work is largely posthumous. He was not a cleric and only came to live in Hampshire in his latter years, having spent most of his life in Staffordshire and London, his early profession being that of an ironmonger. It seems his final resting place was determined by family connections – his son-in-law was the Canon of Winchester Cathedral at the time of his death at the pretty remarkable 90 years of age.  The place of the chapel in piscatorial lore was most likely cemented when, in 1914, a group of British and American fly fishers paid for the current stained glass window that features, in addition to the four Apostles, details showing Walton in quiet contemplation by the River Itchen with St Catherine’s Hill in the background plus Walton and Cotton communing at Beresford Dale in Derbyshire, where the pair built the Fishing Temple beside the River Dove. Postscript I was doing a final fact check for this article when, lo and behold, I came across a statue of none other than Izaak Walton by the sculptor Peter Walker that was erected beside the River Sow in Walton’s native Stafford in 2000. The original piece featured Walton holding a rod but that appears to have disappeared if you visit today. I feel a stiff email coming on to Sheffield University, custodians of the Sporting Statues Project. Izaak Walton aka Piscator at home on the banks of the River Sow

Office hours, 2024 bookings & Gift voucher redemptions  The office is closed today and for all the regular holiday days over the coming week or so. However, Jamie will be here 9am-5pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (December 27/28/29) to answer your queries and I will answer emails, on an irregular basis, in between. The 2024 diaries will go online for day rod and all other bookings on 27 December. The only exceptions are Broadlands House, Fisherton de la Mere, Shawford Park and Wrackleford Estate which will remain on request until we have the diaries in mid-January. To check dates and book use this link …….. You may, of course, email and phone as we haven’t entirely retreated behind an internet wall. For online gift voucher redemption you will need your Voucher number, a five digit number and also your Account number, a combination of letters and numbers, both of which are located on the bottom righthand side of the voucher. Use this link ……. View or print 2024 price list Merry Christmas Well, that is almost it for another year. From all of us at Fishing Breaks, plus the fish as well, all the very best for a fun Christmas. We really appreciate your custom and friendship so hope, wherever you are and wherever you fish, all your 2024 river wishes may come true. I sign off with this Private Eye Christmas card kindly sent to me; I think it sums the state of our rivers in a way that only a cartoonist could capture.

Quiz The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page. 1)     Private Eye magazine was first published in a) 1951 b) 1961 or c) 1971? 2)     If you had christougenniatikophobia what would you be scared of? 3)     Who wrote or sang White Christmas for the 1942 musical Holiday Inn?

Have a great break and I'll be back shortly after Christmas with 2023 in photos.  Best wishes,

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

Quiz answers: 1)     1961 2)     Christmas 3)     Irving Berlin wrote the song and Bing Crosby sung it, for which they won an Oscar.

2023 in Photos

 

Greetings! Another year nearly over. Another chalkstream season done. After the drought of ’22 we have had the deluge of ’23. What will ’24 bring? We will all, of course, often flee to the splendid isolation of the riverbank in a year that will undoubtedly be dominated by the General Election. For those who love rivers this will be an unusual one because ‘ownership’ of the sewage issue will undoubtedly be up for grabs. I am not confident that manifesto pledges and political point scoring will immediately solve the many and manifold issues that impact on our rivers, the natural beauty of our nation and the health of the countryside. However, in the medium to long term  the sheer fact that this has become a mainstream issue gives some hope that problems will be addressed and solutions found. The critical moment will likely come in April when regulator Ofwat approves (or not) a 31% increase in consumer water and sewerage charges for 2025-30. The challenge, at this point, will be to convince the public and politicians in this, an election year, that the increase (roughly £3 a week for every home) will not go to line the pockets of water company owners and that the money will be effectively spent. We will see. But in the meantime, the streams will roll, the flies will hatch and the trout will rise. Because, for all the travails, chalkstreams remain an amazing refuge from everyday life. A micro universe of everything that is astonishing about Mother Nature. All the very best for 2024.

January A hard, frosty morning on Inkpen Beacon from which you can see the chalkstream valleys of Berkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire to the north, south and west.

February One of many talks I was to give on the history, delights and current state of the English chalkstreams. March Martin Aris, river keeper of some 50 years, at the launch of his biography.

April Cartoonist Peter Brookes of The Daily Telegraph neatly captures the zeitgeist

May The River Kennet in full bloom as the hawthorn flower and fly came late, but both in super abundance

June My first (and only) Danish brown trout on what may, or may not be, a Danish chalkstream. July Bullington Manor captured from the air, the many dead or dying ash trees plaintive fingers pointing upwards from the woodland August How many river keepers does it take to change an oak board? September You never, and should never, forget that first fish. October The first hues of autumn at Kimbridge on the River Test

November John Reeves, river keeper on the Coln in Gloucestershire announces his retirement after over 60 years on the same river

December The rainbows in the Nether Wallop Mill lake line up to spawn. It will ultimately be fruitless but they seem to be having fun.

2024 bookings open The online diaries are now fully open for 2024 day rods, courses, cottages, huts, camps and all we have to offer. Here are a few useful links to search around the site: Day rods – use this link to search by date All rivers – use this to search by river and/or beat Compare the beats – use this link to search by any variable e.g. % wild or whether you can take your dog Courses – use this link to see the full range and dates Family & kids - use this link to see the full range Fishing cottages – search by cottage All dates are up and online – I am holding nothing back with the exception of Broadlands House, Fisherton de la Mere, Shawford Park and Wrackleford who are still to confirm diary dates. Click to view and print

Enjoy the rest of the holidays.   Best wishes,

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.c