John Ellison

🚨BREAKING The Financial Times has just revealed that Thames Water’s US hedge fund creditors are close to agreeing a ‘last and final’ deal to take over the company. A handover to US hedge funds. A continuation of the privatised chaos. And a huge reward for the people who have run our water into the ground. The deal would see them allowed to pollute our rivers and seas without consequence - in exchange for an upfront payoff. This deal is absolutely outrageous, in every regard. 112 MPs have already called for special administration of Thames Water. A cross-party group of MPs - who scrutinise the Environment Department - have said that the creditors’ proposal should be rejected and Thames Water should be brought into special administration. And the former Environment Secretary rejected a previous version of the creditors’ deal in June. This new version is not better in any way. @andyburnham promised to reverse Thatcher’s legacy of privatisation. He promised public control of life’s essentials. This really is the moment of truth for Andy Burnham. If he allows the water supply of 16 million people to be sold off to US hedge funds - how can we take him seriously about any of his promises? NO DEAL to the Thames Water creditors. Special administration now.

🇬🇧 “Is it now the Labour position that a genocide is not racist?” Green Party leader Zack Polanski confronted Conservative and Labour politicians at the London Assembly on Thursday after Conservative Susan Hall introduced a motion condemning the Greens’ decision to define Zionism as racism. Hall called the Green Party’s position “abhorrent” and argued it threatened Jewish Londoners. Polanski, who is Jewish, accused Hall of weaponizing antisemitism and challenged Labour members over their government’s continued military support for Israel amid the genocide in Gaza. The Assembly passed Hall’s motion 19–3, with just the three Green members voting against it.