Britain is notorious for many failings, especially its wet climate. A day hardly passes without rain bucketing down; the raindrops are like carpet stair rods and hurt almost as much. This is why the UK is so fertile and green.

Running out of water is like Saudi Arabia running out of sand. Hold my beer.

The UK has been pushed to the brink of water rationing due to years of mismanagement (corruption is off the scale) of resources and insufficient infrastructure, the country’s environment minister has warned.

In an interview with The i Paper published on Monday, Steve Reed said the country was faced with adopting measures often seen in drought-hit Mediterranean nations.

I live in southern Spain, where you can go from April to October without rain, yet in 18 years I have never experienced a water shortage.

‘The public, by and large, were not aware that at the time of the last general election, this country was looking at water rationing within ten years,’ Reed said, speaking one year after Labour’s election win. You see: it is always the fault of the previous administration.

He warned that rebuilding the UK’s essential systems, including water infrastructure, ’cannot be done over just five years.’

He claims the strain on supply has increased due to growing demand from new industries such as battery factories and data centers, which require large volumes of water to cool their systems. 

‘They can’t operate without vast amounts of water,’ he said. (Oh, other countries in the Mediterranean and Central Europe, even Ukraine, don’t have battery factories and data centers? 

Reed added that without intervention, the UK faced rationing and water being turned off at certain times of the day.

The warning follows a record-breaking June heatwave in the UK, and as temperatures are expected to exceed 30C (86F) in parts of the country again this week.

The government has secured (borrowed at high interest) £104 billion (around $136 billion) for infrastructure upgrades over the next five years following a spending review by the so-called regulator Ofwat. The funds will be used to build reservoirs and reduce leakage, Reed said.

However, he warned that despite growing public demand for action, restoring the country’s water system would take more than five years.

By the way, you live in a totalitarian state where politicians blather the most ridiculous statements and lies, knowing that there isn’t a journalist who will risk his or her job by robustly challenging them. You can share this story on social media:

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

SUPER NEW GENERATION BOOKS AND NOVELS: Romance, Travel, Maritime, War and Culture: Britain and Europe’s most successful writer, ​Michael Walsh, also available on Amazon https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/