Brian Cox had the best response to sewage swimming Tory MP Damian Green

As you’ll probably already be aware by now, Britain’s waterways and coastline is currently – and let’s be frank about it – full of shit.

The sterling campaigning work of people like Feargal Sharkey – @Feargal_Sharkey on Twitter – has helped make this a headline issue.

So much so that today water companies in England apologised for repeated sewage spills and pledged to invest £10bn this decade in a too little, too late bid to quell widespread fury over pollution.

And we mention all this because senior Conservative MP and former minister Damian Green went on ITV last night to tell everyone he really didn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Because, well, back in the day, he used to swim in the stuff for fun, apparently. Well, something like that.

"I remember as a child in South Wales swimming in sewage"

Conservative MP @DamianGreen says water pollution from sewage dumping has always been an issue, but it used to be perceived as more acceptable #Peston pic.twitter.com/386v3pltuJ

— Peston (@itvpeston) May 17, 2023

And it got no end of fabulously on-point responses, but surely no-one said it better than Professor Brian Cox.

You were lucky. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would… https://t.co/JmyVHjvpGx

— Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) May 18, 2023

Boom.

We used to look forward to our weekly mouthful of shit, swimming in the local river. Playing "poo" sticks over the bridges. WTF are these snowflakes moaning about? What harm does a bit of sewage do? Apart from making kids blind/e-coli?

— Shaun Keaveny (@shaunwkeaveny) May 18, 2023

You were lucky

— Tom Gilroy photography (@tomgilroy33) May 18, 2023

We used to have to get up out of the shoebox in the middle of the night, and lick road clean with tongues! We had to eat half a handful of freezing-cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day, and when we got home… our dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

— Robbie Scowls (@RScowler) May 18, 2023

It always amazes me that the response to "things are worse now than 15 years ago" is to point out how bad they were 50 years ago.

— Mike Holden (@MikeHolden42) May 18, 2023