A skint, cesspit nation still held to ransom by profiteering gangsters

HERE'S what you don't expect when you take your dog for a walk by your local river.

- BRIAN READE

That dog to come running back to you with brown stuff hanging off her coat that looks like Cadbury's chocolate buttons but smells like a skunk's intestines.

But hey, this is Britain 2023, where it's fine for a water company like United Utilities to take many hundreds of pounds a year from us, bung most of it to shareholders, then dump their waste in our rivers, even if it means our dogs painting our car seats in turd emulsion.

That happened last week in the River Mersey, while up the coast at Blackpool, holidaymakers were being told to stay out of the sea as there was a risk of catching E. coli from human sewage.

And despite these companies nationally dumping raw sewage into rivers and seas, on average, 800 times every day, we suck it up. Just as we suck up the sickening fact that since privatisation they have paid shareholders £65.9 billion in dividends yet are in so much debt our bills may have to rise by 40% to clean-up their sewage mess. That's if they're still in business.