Today we had a budget released that hardly mentioned climate change, by a party that recently voted NOT to enforce penalties against the privatised water companies whose systems are unable to protect our rivers from repeated discharges of raw sewage.

It seemed entirely right to re-post this poem today.

Dirty old river

.

Dirty old river all rusty and brown

Coughs out a ship from the dirty old town

Scavenging birds patrol overhead

Searching for things only recently dead

.

Last resort trawler hauls close up to shore

Scrapes the last scallop and the very last prawn

Flatiron-shaped tug smooths out towards sea

Like the impossible flight of the last bumble bee

.

Dirty old river that once was so pretty

Collects like a sewer from the arse of this city

Where once swam the salmon, the perch and brown trout

Now just jobbies are bobbing about