Years, youve become one of britains most prominent, noisiest campaigners to clean up and protect britains waterways. And when we suggested an interview, you wanted to meet here why here . The simple truth is this is the amwell magna fishery. Ive spent the last six, seven years as chairman until the last few months, and ifind myself, and the club find ourselves six years ago now, five, six years ago, having to pick a massive fight with the very people who are charged by us, by the nation and by parliament to protect, nurture and look after these rivers and particularly this kind of river. This part of the river lea is a choke stream. There are only 225 on the entire planet. Most of them were here in Southern England and this one was on the verge of extinction through lack of flow, it had effectively turned into 2. 5 miles of stagnant garden pond. And when you say lack of flow, isnt that just nature telling us that the climate is warming, that here in the southeast of england, things are getting drier, and the river is suffering . No, not in the least, and i know the Environment Agency would have you believe that, but that overlooks the fact that, as we speak, these most rarest of River Ecosystems on the planet, according to the Environment Agency, are currently being overextracted by local Water Companies to the tune of about 1. 2 billion litres of water per day, every single day, ecologically, environmentally damaging, destroying some of the rarest ecosystems on the planet and all for someone else� s profitability. Youve already mentioned the regulators and youve already hinted that theres a problem, a systemic problem with the way the Water Industry Works in the uk. Try to sum it up for people watching and listening, notjust in the United Kingdom, but around the world, because this may well apply in many countries far beyond the United Kingdom. 0h, absolutely. Here in england, i believe england is unique. It is the only country in the world with an absolutely 100 privatised Water Industry. There are any number of other models used throughout the world some private, some public, some hybrid combinations thereof, but england, so far as i am aware, is unique on the planet in that that industry is, a, 100 privatised and, b, these are Companies Operating state granted monopolies for profit. Now, its not that thats a bad idea, but when you have a Company Operating a monopoly, you clearly need a system of regulation that is hands on, that is proactive and is capable of delivering and ensuring not only the interests of the customer and bill payers, but the environment. Heres what a former chief of the Water Industry sort of broad collective group, the water uk chief exec, michael roberts, said now, he said this admittedly three, four years ago, but im sure the industry would say that the fundamentals still apply. He said, when privatisation came to the uk, Water Quality was poor, rivers were polluted, our beaches were badly affected by sewerage, and since privatisation, investment of nearly 160 billion has seen improvement. He laughs let me put some qualifications on all of this. When Water Companies engine the word � investment� , its not in the sense that you and i and most people think of it, that the shareholders have taken cash out of their back pockets. Any money spent by the Water Companies has actually been funded by bill payers. Now, when they come up with the figure, what they forget to mention is theyve also taken out £72 billion in dividends out of those companies, thats our money, theyve left these companies now sitting on £60 billion worth of debt to such an extent that one of them almost toppled a matter of weeks ago. Youre talking about thames water. Indeed. Which serves, what, 15 million customers and has a debt of some £14 billion. Actually, if you look at their Balance Sheet on thames waters, it says 14, but if you go looking through the Broader Group of companies, youll come to one called kemble water financing, and i think youll find kemble is sitting on £21. 7 billion worth of debt. Now, when it comes to the Water Quality, there are two stretches of river in england right now designated as bathing water. This morning, both of them have no Swim Warnings posted. In 2009, 24 of our rivers met good ecological status. That has now dropped and the current projection is by 2027, that will be down to just six, and as we speak, every single river in england fails the chemical test, every single river is polluted, and one of the biggest sources of that pollution is the Water Industry. So, what the Lobbying Organisation that uk water is, like to qualify and actually tell me that the single fact that ive just given you is wrong, and i will happily withdraw it and apologise profusely. Isnt the problem here that to fix the problems youve just outlined, and there is no doubt, there is a massive problem sewerage is flowing into rivers and onto our uk coast. We see it every single day. Isnt the problem that to really solve that problem, you need to spend enormous sums of money, massive investment in Water Treatment plants and in new sewers, which the Water Companies say can only happen if they are given permission by the regulator to massively up customers� bills. Well, let me help the regulators. They may want to go and speak to their chief executives of the Water Companies who, two years ago, were written to by the regulator who pointed out two things. 0ne, they have a statutory obligation to build, operate and maintain Sewerage Systems capable, and i am quoting, of effectively dealing with the contents of those sewers. They wrote a second time six months later telling the companies in the regulators opinion, we, as customers, for 30 years, have provided all of the funding the companies needed to meet all of their legal obligations, including building and operating an effective sewerage system. Clearly, thats not happened. Crosstalk yeah, but nobody disputes that much better sewers are needed in london and across the country. Ok, but the point. But we know that they cost billions of pounds to install. The point that im making is we have, according to the regulator and Water Companies confirm this annually we, as the public, have provided them with all of the funding that they should have been spending on the sewerage system. So, my question becomes, is weve provided you with the funding, the regulators confirmed that, the Water Companies have confirmed it. What happened to the funding . Where has it gone . It clearly was not spent on the sewerage system, and can we now have a refund . You seem to believe these days that renationalisation of the Water Industry is the answer. Are you sure about that . Actually, i havent said that at all. He laughs. As it happens. My perspective. Well, forgive me, but when i think thames water announced this massive debt, and it looked for a while as though they might, frankly, default on their debts and collapse, you said, we shouldnt pay a penny to bail out thames water. Correct. We should, in essence, renationalise it. No, theres a qualification on that, and let me make two points. 0ne, if we nationalise those companies, we let those shareholders and those bondholders and those people whove made off with £72 billion worth of our money, instead of investing it in the sewerage system, instead of investing in making sure london is supplied with water, because londons now on the verge of running out of water for the same reason lack of investment in infrastructure. What i said was the legislation already exists for the Secretary Of State to actually resolve and move this forward this afternoon with nothing more than a stroke of a pen. Government in the secondary state has the power and authority to issue whats called enforcement orders, which allows government to effectively take control of those companies whilst they remain in private ownership, and government can order those companies this is what youre going to invest in infrastructure, and this is what youre going to pay your shareholders, this is what youre going to do to pay down your debt, and this is what youre going to do to pay your chief executive. Government has the power to do that this afternoon. Yeah, well, therese coffey, who, as you know, is the Secretary Of State responsible for the environment, she says 1. 6 billion has been agreed with the Water Companies as an immediate investment priority. She says that the uk government is raising the cap on fines for Water Companies that are polluting the waterways. She says shes listening to people like you. Actually, shes not. All she had to do was enforce the law in the first place instead of creating new ones that will deliver little, if anything. The uk government was taken to court by the European Commission in 2012, and the European Court ofjustice ten years ago ruled that what was happening in the uk was in breach of the legislation, it was illegal and sewerage should only ever be dumped into the environment in exceptional situations. Now, that means a rare event that is so unique, you couldnt actually foresee it and plan for it. So heres the thing for me, what the government have done, its a classic of bureaucratic lets create a process, lets make it look like were getting busy and doing something whilst at the time actually delivering little, if anything. They shouldve just enforced the law as it stood at the time, and theres still time to do that. Turn your eyes to the left, to this gorgeous stream, river behind you. The brown trout are still there, arent they . They certainly are, and. So, perhaps you might be accused of being some sort of doomsday voice, wishing to exaggerate problem for, some might even say, political capital. Well, let me try it this way. A, im nota member of any political party. Well, youve been an advisor to the labour party in the past, and it seems to me that your message is now getting through to sir keir starmer, who has been emphasising, in recent days, your message that, in his words, the waterways of britain are thoroughly and utterly polluted. To qualify it, i have was appointed a regulator of the commercial Radio Industry by the then labour government, i was appointed chairman of the live music forum, which was commissioned and established by government, and so far as im aware, ive never ever acted as an advisor to the labour party, just so that were clear where we are. I will repeat again not a single river in england is in good overall environmental health. Every single river is polluted. Youre an experienced campaigner, cos foryears, you did advocacy work for the Music Industry, and now, youve obviously devoted so much of your time to cleaning up the waterways of britain. Do you think youre cutting through . Listen, how do you measure these things . On one level, ive been incredibly fortunate. Ive spent all of my adult life with random people in random places all over the world walking up to me and wanting to talk to me about music. Now, as a musician, what an extraordinary thing. Heres the shift. Over the last two or three years, people now want to talk to me about effluent in rivers, and thats beginning with that four letter word beginning with s. Yeah, i think i know the word you mean, which we cant use on the bbc. Nonetheless, its a powerful word, and what youve specifically done is and youve done it in this interview as well youve suggested that what we see in our rivers, all of the pollution and the problems are linked to, and its a word youve used corruption. You seem to believe there is something now corrupt about the Water Industry. Well, when i say corrupt. Well, let me put it this way. Its a word you use. 0h, listen, absolutely, and two reasons give me some background for that. The Environment Agency, as we speak are and i believe im quoting them currently engaged in the largest criminal investigation theyve ever launched against all Water Companies, and that they now believe there may have been widespread serious Non Compliance with discharge permits. Thats the words of the regulator, not me. So the regulator seems to think theres some kind of corruption going on, and yesterday, it was announced that six Water Companies are now in the process of being taken to court over that very allegation that there was misreporting, underreporting going on. That was being used to then gain favour from the regulator, and let me remind everybody. Crosstalk we have to be careful. As you say, allegations allegations right now. Let me make the last point. It is not 12 months ago that Southern Water was fined 90 million quid in court, and the judge ruled that that was because they were deliberately misleading and trying to deflect the regulator away from what was going on, and the reality of their business model. Thats not an allegation on my part. That was the quote judgement. He laughs all right. Im going to ask you now to take your mind away from this river, away from the specifics of britains water issues, and ask you whether this passion that youre expressing with me right now, whether it runs right through your life and can be traced back to your roots in derry, londonderry as some call it, in Northern Ireland. Yeah, its ok. Where, frankly, you were raised in one of the tensest spots, in the middle of Northern Irelands troubles. Were you a fighter from the very beginning . Um. I dont think so. Were my parents fighters . Probably. You were named after two ira men. Thats very true. Suggests your mum was a fighter. That clearly suggests my mum was a fighter. My dad was chairman of the labour party in derry when there was such a thing, he was Branch Secretary of his local union. Both my parents were deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and i have vivid recollections of being ten years old and being taken on civil rights marches all over ireland, all throughout Northern Ireland, my family were on Burntollet The Day that parade was attacked, my family were there at bloody sunday, and my family were deeply engaged in trying to change a corrupt political system in Northern Ireland. So, heres one of the fascinating things about you. I mean, here we see it, and you have a cause and are a fighter now for that cause, but whats fascinating about you as a musician because i want to talk about you as a musician is that you and your bandmates in the undertones, when you had that Great Success as part of the punk era of the sort of late � 70s, early � 80s, you, despite your upbringing, chose not to sing political songs. Heres the thing. The undertones developed a career because of a little bar called the casbah. It was the only pub in town that would actually entertain the fact that five kids with no idea what they were doing, and we were given a bit of space on a friday night. Right outside the door of the casbah was a british army checkpoint. So, simply to get in and out of that pub, you basically would have to be searched, name checked, date of birth, run through computer all that kind of good stuff. Do you really think the 50 people turning up to watch the undertones on a friday night needed us to give them a lecture about bombs, bullets and barricades . We, like every healthy. Or was it that maybe you were intimidated to a certain extent . Oh, no, good lord, not in the least. It wasnt that, it wasnt fear . I can absolutely assure you the last bunch of people you ever could possibly intimidate was the five members of the undertones like every other healthy teenager on the planet, we were more obsessed with more songs about chocolate and girls. Exactly. What you sang about was the usual teenage dreams, the longings, the girls, the frustrations with your family, it was. It was the stuff of ordinary life. Correct. Which in a funny sort of way was sort of avoiding the reality of what you were living through. Well, its not, because that was actually allowing us that moment of freedom and that head space and that moment of clarity, because the truth is nobody in Northern Ireland at the time sat around thinking, oh, this is dreadful, this is terrible. Everybody, as best they could, was trying to get on with normal lives. And, in fact, that situation, like all forms of poverty and oppression and difficulty and suffrage, becomes normal. And ill give you a very simple example. The first time we as the undertones went to new york, i had spent weeks reading articles and National Newspapers about the crime rate on Manhattan Island and the death toll that there was and the likelihood if i walked out of my hotel on 42nd street, id be mugged within seconds, and about half an hour in times square, my brain engaged and just went, sharkey, ten hours ago, you were standing in the bog side. Theres nothing new york is ever going to throw you, my friend, that will ever put you off your beat. Why did you quit so young . You formed the undertones with your mates in, i think, � 75. Yeah. You were out by � 83. Still, hugely popular. We were, but thats the simple truth of the matter is i then had a longing for other things and wanted to go in different directions. We were settling down. Some people want to stay in derry, some people wanted to make different particular types of records, and youre dealing with any little group of friends that effectively met when we were teenagers. I just wonder if theres something about the Music Business you really didnt like, cos you said afterwards, not so long after you left, you just said, i couldnt go on making the kind of intellectual and emotional investment that they needed any more. Oh, that was back towards that was when i was getting towards my late 20s, heading towards my 30th birthday. Yeah, and that was me demanding of myself that the level of investment i emotionally and intellectually wanted and needed to put into records, and i guess if fast forward 30 years, wed now be saying maybe i was kind of going, you know what . I need to take a break from this for a while, and to get away from it. I wonder about the Music Business, cos you worked in the record industry for a while, then you run uk music, which was the site of the Big Lobby Group Working On Behalf of musicians and venues and all of that. Do you think the Music Business and particularly musicians are in real trouble right now . The digital age does not seem to have worked out well for musicians. Listen, listen, the simple truth of the matter is you cannot single out the Music Industry for that kind of accusation or scrutiny. I could line up any. Well, yeah, you can. Why cant you . I could line up every single industry in the country, i speak to the Fleet Street Journalists right now, theyre on the verge of a nervous breakdown every morning, its eight oclock in the morning, wondering what theyre going to do for the byline that day. We all live in that kind of world with that kind of pressure. Now. But for creators, musicians who are seeing that their music is being downloaded by possibly thousands, if not millions of users, and yet they are getting virtually no reward. Thats a different thing and, clearly, my instinct and empathy are going to be towards the musicians and the songwriters and the composers and the performers. So, yes, but, by the way, thats not to say that the Music Industry workers are any less or more exploited than others. Go and tell that to the man from amazon whos having to deliver a thousand packages a day and running up your driveway, ringing the doorbell because hes got a hand held device demanding that hes back in his van in another 7. 5 seconds. Now, heres the thing, and its where you and i are going to agree is it moral when the likes of apple and google and Tech Companies and big multinational Record Companies are reporting Lifetime Changing sums of money and profit. Exactly. And songwriters are out there not even making a minimum wage . So is there a need for the industry to reexamine and readdress . Absolutely. I mean, do you think you i mean, lets be honest, did you think you failed people like mahalia . Now, mahalia is an r b singer, shes very successful, shes been on tour with ed sheeran, shes won awards. She said just the other day, i have racked up 12 years of debt. When she goes on tour, she ends up with a deficit. She is getting virtually nothing. Ive read the blog. From every song that she that her fans download. 0h, sure. I mean, theres something wrong there, and you were supposed to be working on these peoples behalf. 0k. Well, heres the thing are they getting paid . Thats a nice allegation to be marking. Heres the thing. Is there now a Licensing Scheme available through apple . And by the way, i didnt do those deals. Have we moved from where people could access all of the history of the internet and the Music Industry for free, and fast forward that to there now is some sort of marketplace there . Well, it does now exist, and it is there. I absolutely 100 agree, but happily applaud any and all efforts by the artists. There needs to be a rebalancing of the Payment System and the means of distribution back to the artist, because right now, theyre being disadvantaged, it is unfair, and that needs to be addressed, and technologies and regulators and governments are as much a part of that as the Record Companies and the Music Industry. Just a final thought on that. Do you think if you and your mates were looking, you know, in your late teens today, looking at forming a band, looked at the realities of brexit for musicians, which has definitely added to the bureaucracy and costs of touring in europe, look at the way the digital era works for musicians, do you think you would actually want to go into it . Well, you see, you overlooked the most basic compulsive thing about why people become musicians or creators or writers or painters. They have an inherent burning desire and ambition to do it, and youre not going to do a damn thing or put an obstacle in the way that is going to stop them from doing it. One of the things that actually sets the United Kingdom apart from most others on the planet is, thankfully, we have generation after generation of young people who have that desire, that passion, that drive, that lionheart, and who go on to create the most extraordinary music in the world that the rest of the world wants to embrace and listen to. Final thought. You stopped performing, you left the Music Industry behind. Now youve fully adopted clean water and these beautiful rivers as your cause. You have raised your own profile when it comes to the politics of this issue. Whats next for you . I mentioned earlier on that people used to come up and talk to me about music. Im really happy to go back to obscurity again and go back to talking about music instead of talking about effluent and rivers. I look forward to that day enthusiastically. Feargal sharkey, its been a pleasure. Thank you for being on hardtalk. Thank you for the opportunity. Hello there. Our final Bank Holiday Weekend of the Summer Season was certainly dominated by sunny spells and scattered showers some really potent ones on saturday, but by monday, fewer showers around, allowing us to get out and enjoy some fresh air and glimpses of sunshine. Quite a cloudy start, but into the afternoon, the cloud broke up and we closed out the day with some decent sunshine around. Now, low pressure is set to dominate this tuesday and continue with that sunny spells and scattered shower theme. The trailing Weather Front here will certainly introduce more cloud across northern england, parts of wales and South West England first thing in the morning, and some light, patchy rain here. We start off with sunshine across the north, but a few scattered showers will develop as we go through the day. And so, by the middle part of the afternoon, our Weather Front will be sitting across lincolnshire down into South West England. Ahead of it, still relatively mild, but behind it, well see some sunshine. There will be a few showers and some of these really quite heavy. For Northern Ireland, for scotland, its a case of sunny spells and scattered showers some of those showers could be really quite potent the odd rumble of thunder and noticeably fresher, particularly on exposed north and west facing coasts. 15 or 16 degrees at the very best. Now, that low pressure drifts away and allows this brief ridge of High Pressure to build as we move into wednesday. That means that showers will fade away and skies clear, and so, to start the day on wednesday, we could actually have a chilly ish start with temperatures generally into single figures. But it will be accompanied by some spells of sunshine. A north westerly wind still with us, and so that could just filter a few organised showers down through the isle of man, the irish sea into north west england. But generally, it will be a quieter day with fewer showers around, but still, because of the Wind Direction coming from the northwest, those temperatures a little disappointing 15 20 thats 68 fahrenheit. Thursday into friday sees rain across england and wales and just how far north that goes is subject to question. But after that, it looks likely that High Pressure will build for the start of the first full week of september. So, yes, we are going to continue with that showery rain, but fingers crossed that High Pressure builds and quietens things down for the start of the following weekend. Live from london, this is bbc news. Football officials from across spain urge Luis Rubiales to resign as president of the countrys fa after he kissed a player following the womens world cup final. A trial date is set for former us President Donald Trump as he faces charges of Election Interference ahead of crucial Super Tuesday primaries. And travel chaos continues as flights could be disrupted for days due to technical problems at the uks air Traffic Control system. Hello, im sally bundock. Spains Football Federation has asked its president , Luis Rubiales, to resign after he kissed a player on the lips following the womens world cup final. The federations call for him to step down, comes after spanish prosecutors opened an investigation into whether the kiss amounted to a Sexual Assault on the striker, jenni hermoso. From madrid, guy hedgecoe has the latest