THE NATIONAL LIBERAL PARTY believes that any industry – that could be said to be vital to the national interest – should initially be publicly owned.  With this in mind, we feel that the water industry is vital to the national interest.

Therefore, we were more than interested to learn that an online petition has called for a referendum to be held to do just that.

Launched at the beginning of this month, the petition will be open for six months to gather signatures. If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, it will receive a response from the government department responsible for the petition topic.

We feel that the idea of a privatised water industry is deeply unpopular –   irrespective of what company is running a particular local water supply.

Therefore, we feel that there’s a fair chance that this petition could well make 100,000 signatures.  Any debate should be used by MPs to expose the nature of water privatisation.

This could act as a spur to eventually returning the water industry back under public control.

The text of the petition – created by Ashley Paul Smith – says it all:

‘Hold a binding national referendum on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public should decide who owns and controls it.

Private water companies have about 62 million captive customers whose bills have delivered over £85 Bn to shareholders; money that in public ownership could have been spent on fixing our infrastructure. No other country in the world has privatised water like this. We believe that proposed government reforms to regulation show that water company owners are being favoured over the public, and this is not right in a democracy. A referendum would give the public back its voice about its water.’

We’d therefore call upon as many people as possible to sign this petition, which you can find here:

Once signed, you’ll receive updates on the progress of the petition.  As we noted earlier, we feel that there’s a good chance that it’ll reach 100,000 signatures.  This, in turn, should force a Westminster debate.

It’ll then be down to people power to ensure that MPs turn up to vote.

Change will not happen overnight, but this petition & any subsequent debate is a step in the right direction.

The initiative is committed to recycling, reusing and repurposing landfill sites to create sustainable energy and heat. This, in turn, enables year-round fruit and vegetable production.

This is a new twist on the very old idea of a midden & is literally a case of back to the future.  (A midden is basically a pile or heap of waste materials, often organic such as animal dung, food scraps, or other household rubbish.)  Middens would be piled outside homes.  The waste decomposed, providing heat, material to burn and composted biomass.

Sustain Wiltshire aims to place pressured growing domes on the surface of sealed landfill sites.  (These domes will be three times the size of a standard tennis court, and twice the height of a London double decker bus.)

Methan gas – which is currently burnt off – will be used to generate electricity and heat.  Modern technology will ensure that a perfect growing temperature will be maintained all year round.  Low-impact ultraviolet horticultural lights will also extend the growing season.

Growing methods would include hydroponics – a method of growing plants without soil, using nutrient-rich water to deliver essential minerals directly to the roots – raised growing beds and plant containers

It’s predicted that each growing dome will produce 8,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables each year.  (In addition, 130 new jobs will be created, and the release of 3,800 tonnes of CO2 each year will be prevented.)

And it’s believed that this initiative will provide 80% of all fruit and vegetable requirements for the local communities of Wootton Bassett, Brinkworth, Malmesbury and Purton.

It’s believed that this form of localism – which includes a distribution hub & daily delivery service – will mean that the fruit and vegetables will be cheaper than those available from supermarkets.  In time, it’s hoped that deliveries could also include dairy products and meat from local farmers.

US AND IRANIAN negotiators met in Geneva (1) earlier this week in what mediators described as the most serious and constructive talks in years. Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, spoke publicly of “unprecedented openness,” (2) signalling that both sides were exploring creative formulations rather than repeating entrenched positions. Discussions showed flexibility on nuclear limits and sanctions relief, and mediators indicated that a principles agreement could have been reached within days, with detailed verification mechanisms to follow within months.

Sensing how close the negotiations were — and how imminent military escalation had become — Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, made an emergency dash to Washington (3) in a last-ditch effort to preserve the diplomatic track.

In an unusually public move for a mediator, he appeared on CBS to outline just how far the talks had progressed. He described a deal that would eliminate Iranian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, down-blend existing material inside Iran (4), and allow full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — with the possibility of US inspectors participating alongside them. Iran, he suggested, would enrich only for civilian purposes. A principles agreement, he indicated, could be signed within days. It was a remarkable disclosure — effectively revealing the contours of a near-breakthrough in an attempt to prevent imminent war.

But rather than allowing diplomacy (5) to conclude, the US and Israel have launched coordinated strikes across Iran (6). Explosions were reported in Tehran and other cities. Trump announced “major combat operations,” (7) framing them as necessary to eliminate nuclear and missile threats while urging Iranians to seize the moment and overthrow their leadership. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks targeting US bases and allied states across the region.

What is most striking is not merely that diplomacy failed, but that it failed amid visible progress. Mediators were openly discussing a viable framework; both sides had demonstrated flexibility – a pathway to constrain nuclear escalation appeared tangible. Choosing military escalation at that moment undermines the premise that negotiation is a genuine alternative to war. It signals that even active diplomacy offers no guarantee of restraint. Peace was not naïve. It was plausible.

Iran’s approach in Geneva was strategic, not submissive. Proposals involving economic incentives – including energy cooperation (8) – were not unilateral concessions but calculated compromises designed to structure a politically survivable agreement in Washington. The core objective was clear: constrain Iran’s nuclear programme through enforceable limits and intrusive verification, thereby addressing the very proliferation risks that sanctions and threats of force were meant to prevent.

Talks had moved beyond rhetorical posturing toward concrete proposals. For the first time in years, there was credible movement toward stabilizing the nuclear issue (9). By attacking during that negotiation window, Washington and its allies have not only derailed a diplomatic opening but have cast doubt on the durability of American commitments to negotiated solutions. The message to Tehran – and to other adversaries weighing diplomacy – is stark: even when talks appear to work, they can be overtaken by force.

Advocates of escalation often invoke Iraq in 2003 or Libya in 2011 as precedents for rapid regime collapse under pressure. Those analogies are misleading. Iraq and Libya were highly personalised systems, overly dependent on narrow patronage networks and individual rulers. Remove the centre, and the structure imploded.

Iran is structurally different. It is not a dynastic dictatorship but an ideologically entrenched state with layered institutions, doctrinal legitimacy and a deeply embedded security apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Its authority is intertwined with religious, political and strategic narratives cultivated over decades. It has endured sanctions, regional isolation and sustained external pressure without fracturing.

Even a previous US-Israeli campaign in 2025 that lasted 12 days failed to eliminate Tehran’s retaliatory capacity. Far from collapsing, the state absorbed pressure and responded (10). Hitting such a system with maximum force does not guarantee implosion; it may instead consolidate internal cohesion and reinforce narratives of external aggression that the leadership has long leveraged.

Rhetoric surrounding the strikes has already shifted from tactical objectives to the language of regime change. US and Israeli leaders framed military action not solely as neutralising missile or nuclear capabilities, but as an opportunity for Iranians to overthrow their government. That calculus – regime change by force – is historically fraught with risk.

The Iraq invasion should be a cautionary tale. The US spent more than a decade cultivating multiple Iraqi opposition groups – yet dismantling the centralised state apparatus still produced chaos, insurgency and fragmentation. The vacuum gave rise to extremist organisations such as IS, drawing the US into years of renewed conflict.

Approaching Iran with similar assumptions ignores both its institutional resilience and the complexity of regional geopolitics. Sectarian divisions, entrenched alliances and proxy networks mean that destabilisation in Tehran would not remain contained. It could rapidly spill across borders and harden into prolonged confrontation.

Iran has invested heavily in asymmetric capabilities (11) precisely to deter and complicate external intervention. Its missile, drone and naval systems are embedded along the strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for global energy — and linked into a network of regional allies and militias.

In the current escalation, Tehran has already launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes against US military bases and allied territories in the Gulf (12), hitting locations in Iraq, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (including Abu Dhabi), Kuwait and Qatar in direct response to US and Israeli strikes on Iran’s cities, including Tehran, Qom and Isfahan. Explosions have been reported in Bahrain and the UAE, with at least one confirmed fatality in Abu Dhabi (13), and several bases housing US personnel have been struck or targeted, underscoring how the conflict has already spread beyond Iran’s borders.

A full-scale regional war is now more likely than it was a week ago. Miscalculation could draw multiple states into conflict, inflame sectarian fault lines and disrupt global energy markets. What might have remained a contained nuclear dispute now risks expanding into a wider geopolitical confrontation.

Trump built his political brand opposing “endless wars” and criticising the Iraq invasion. “America First” (14) promised strategic restraint, hard bargaining and an aversion to open-ended intervention. Escalating militarily at the very moment diplomacy was advancing sits uneasily with that doctrine and revives questions about the true objectives of US strategy in the Middle East.

If a workable nuclear framework was genuinely emerging, abandoning it in favour of escalation invites a deeper question: does sustained tension serve certain strategic preferences more comfortably than durable peace?

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago address (15) announcing the strikes carried unmistakable echoes of George W. Bush before the 2003 invasion of Iraq (16). Military action was framed as reluctant yet necessary – a pre-emptive move to eliminate gathering threats and secure peace through strength. The rhetoric of patience exhausted and danger confronted before it fully materialises closely mirrors the language Bush used to justify the march into Baghdad.

The parallel extends beyond tone. Bush cast the Iraq war as liberation as well as disarmament, promising Iraqis freedom from dictatorship. Trump similarly urged Iranians to reclaim their country, implicitly linking force to regime change. In Iraq, that fusion of shock and salvation produced not swift democratic renewal but prolonged instability. The assumption that military force can reorder political systems from the outside has already been tested – and its costs remain visible.

The central challenge now facing the US is not simply Iran’s military capability. It is credibility. Abandoning negotiations mid-course signals that diplomacy can be overridden by force even when progress is visible. That perception will resonate far beyond Tehran.

Peace was never guaranteed. It was limited and imperfect, focused primarily on nuclear constraints rather than human rights or regional proxy networks. But it was plausible – and closer than many assumed. Breaking the bridge while building it does more than halt a single agreement – it risks convincing both sides that negotiation itself is futile.

In that world, trust erodes, deterrence hardens and aggression – not agreement – becomes the default language of international power. What we are witnessing is yet another clear indication that the rules-based order has been consigned to the history books.

MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE that politics simply consists of making as much noise as possible via demonstrations, pickets and so on.  Whilst various forms of street activism are important, they’re not the be all & end all of politics.

In fact, it’s probably true to say that more than enough serious political work goes on behind the scenes, as opposed to on the streets.  Indeed,  well disciplined & orderly large-scale street activities simply wouldn’t take place if it wasn’t for backroom planning.

But working behind the scenes is not as exciting – or ‘glamourous’ – as taking part in demonstrations.  Therefore, many people are put off by what are viewed as boring & repetitive administrative tasks.

It could be argued that writing letters to the press – especially the local press – falls under this category.  Nevertheless, it remains a great way of getting National Liberal points of view across to the public and/or promoting constructive & respectful debate.

An example of this is reproduced below.

Here, Brent Cheetham, the NLPs well-known Councillor for Cuffley (in Hertfordshire) managed to get a letter published yesterday in the Hertfordshire Mercury under their banner headline of Some Climate Change Deniers Are Like The Flat Earth Brigade!  

Hopefully, this form of respectful public engagement will help promote the ongoing debate about climate change.

To answer this, our attention was recently drawn to this interesting article – the original of which can be found here https://electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/electoral-reform/ – from the ERS.

I NEVER cease to be amazed at how members of our political elite doggedly refuse to learn the lessons of history. Worse, some of them appear to have no knowledge of the past beyond the previous fortnight.

How else might we explain the support shown by certain voices for the decision by President Trump to bomb Venezuela, seize its sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, and effectively turn the country into a US colony?

Let me stress that, while I am on the left, I am not blind to the socialist Maduro’s misdeeds. There is strong evidence that he stole the 2024 presidential election, and that crime alone would be reason enough for Venezuelans to want rid of him.

But who decreed that the White House should act as the planet’s law enforcement agency? What gives Trump the right to launch a military assault on another sovereign nation – one that posed no clear and present threat to the US – without consulting the United Nations, fellow world leaders or even his own Congress?

We’ve seen this movie many times. US-led interventions in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq became wars of attrition before ending up as military and political catastrophes. Similarly, the 2011 US-backed Libyan escapade – almost entirely ignored by the political and media classes these days – sparked a seismic migration crisis which plagued Europe for years thereafter.

The pretext for such interventions is usually the liberation of an oppressed population and the promotion of democracy and human rights. The reality, however, is that the US has a grubby history of collaboration with despotic and corrupt regimes across the globe. It’s just that those regimes happen to serve its interests in a way that the Maduros of this world don’t. ‘Realpolitik’, they call it. Utter hypocrisy, I say.

We should, I suppose, at least commend Trump for not trying to fool us with guff about defending democracy and human rights in Venezuela. On the contrary, he was searingly honest in his admission that this intervention was all about oil and strategic advantage. He is plainly willing to use the mighty war machine at his disposal in the service of a new American imperialism, and he doesn’t care who knows it. Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO-member Denmark, is next on the hit list – and that’s when the balloon will really go up.

(1) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/8/what-resources-does-venezuela-have-apart-from-the-worlds-most