I wonder why the reporter went to the house? Unusual, surely, without an appointment?

They left the hose running 2 hours while the photographer attended (The People too hard up to provide cameras on the mobile phone?) but make an issue of someone taking 35mins to get there from the estate...

No allegation the hose being on was anything to do with Mr B, or was at a building he had control over.

I'm not convinced, nor impressed by the methodology. Failing to convince with the truth(?) is not healthy.....

I agree, but perhaps the grounds men should have wound the hose up and put it away.

Whoever it was that turned it on and for whatever reason........

If it looks like a trud*
Feels like a trud
And smells like a trud

It pretty safe to assume it is a trud.

Me thinks a set up. Way too many coincidences there!


*rearrange the letters.

I still disagree. After the water has been used in a bath it is hardly of drinkable standard! In any case, all water coming into domestic premises is treated to potable standards anyway. After it has been used for any purpose it is waste water and can be moved around by means of a hosepipe. It no longer complies with Thames Water's specification. Common sense, really.

I shall certainly continue to drain the bath onto the garden or into outside containers, and if prosecuted I shall take the case to the International Court of Justice!

Gluck with that.

The Benyon story perhaps needs a bit more padding before he is burnt at the stake in Smithfield.

I can tell you sucking out bathwater via a hosepipe is bloody hard work using the traditional method to drain tanks of petrol.
AND you end up with a mouthfull of you wifes leg shavings..... (not to mention the fact that - Oh forget it!)
ce

In any decent brasserie in Paris there is a dungeon like affair in the basement.
The last one I ventured into I couldn't find the light, so as a gentleman I used the hand basin.

The ones I could see all had signs above the taps "Eau Non Potable". So where does that water come from?
And who invented the word in the first place, Romans ,French or us. What is wrong with "drinking water or mains tap water"

Too poncy for me . Why confuse the likes of moi with "Potable".
ce

Quite!...and seemingly before bothering to report it!

You have had a previous experience there ce?
I hate hair in the bathroom.
I can shave my face and the other associated bits you would shave and leave no mess at all in the bath, I clear everything up. Another chap comes in and it's all icky ewughefgrhghrgbhrgbrh

You live with the wrong gender.....

Some people had been placing bets at Ladbrokes that an MP would be caught flouting the hosepipe ban. It was 5/1 that an MP (or a member of their staff) would be caught. Spooky.

Has Richard Benyon MP & the Minister for Water had a 'Clinton! moment when he stated "Neither I, nor my family, nor anyone who works for me turned that hose on”?

You didn't previously say that you would 'use' the water first.

Since the water is not covered by the ban, but (he says) he has instructed it will be complied with as if it were, this affair really is a splash in the pan.

Is 'The People' an organ of truth and honour (if any are, these days)?

'Sod the truth, let's have a good story' is alive and well, I fear.

I assumed Englefield was covered by the ban as Reading, Newbury and Pangbourne are. If Englefield is indeed in an area that has ample water, then there is indeed no story.

The estate has it's own borehole. Mr B is quoted in the Telegraph, however, commenting (as the water comes from the same source) he had instructed no hosepipes to be used.

A last cog has rumbled in my pathetic attempt for a brain.

Some weeks ago I walked past a sign over a small multi use craft area sponsored by Benyon estates.
I looked up the area and it covers much of where I had walked to a garden centre. In Islington.

I have just twigged Englefield Road is named after Englefield House. I avoid it because of humps.
The family seems to still own acres of 'my home town '. (Thanks Bruce)
That which was not demolished by a ruthless labour council in the 60/70s
I am not jealous at all......well only a bit.
ce

There's a woman who lives here too and she leaves hair all over the bath. That's just as disgusting.

I just hope that if the reporters started the Benyon Watergate they get screwed to the ground. I know the newspapers need to sell their papers but this really is scraping the barrel. Do we really believe that the Englefield estate would leave a hose running even when there are no water restrictions. People who work in that environment are professionals either estate or house servants unless one of them had a grudge and turned on the hose and then for a couple of bob rang the People.
Anyway, as the house has a borehole and probably treats its own waste water it really is academic.
I guess it was to be expected and I'm sure that the water vigilantes will come out in force rioting and smashing up greenhouses and making off with the produce..................