Ellee Seymour

Anyone who has seen the film Hotel Rwanda, will remember how those most shocking and unbelievable atrocities were ignored by the rest of the world, particularly the US, who reckoned it was not their problem.

They cannot blame ignorance any longer, nobody can. We cannot fail to act knowing that genocide continues to be a real threat, while Blair has previcated for more than two years.

Blair’s pledge to start talking now is too late, and naturally he is supporting his brother-in-war over this, rather than standing on his own two feet. Earlier this month, the Shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell called on Blair to intervene to avert imminent genocide in the stricken Sudanese region of Darfur. Perhaps he had too many domestic problems on his hands then.

Maybe he has since listened to George Clooney’s urgent warning (the US equivalent to our Bob Geldof), to the UN security council last week: “After September 30, you won’t need the UN. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen.â€?

Desmond Tutu has pleaded for Blair to act in the face of further genocide and questions whether Sudan’s rich oil reserves is influencing how the UN deals with this desperate situation. China, France and Russia, all members of the UN security council, they do business with the government of Sudan and are reluctant to jeopardise their commercial relationships.

Archbishop Tutu says there is something we can all do, we can pray for Darfur today, as well as ask our elected representatives to call for a significant UN force with an effective mandate to protect the civilians in Darfur. I shall be writing off to my MP straight away, that’s something we can all do.

As a former active member of Amnesty International, I know that this organisation believes in the power of the pen, that we can all do something to make a difference for Darfur by bombarding our political leaders with letters of protest against injustice. As today is Global Day for Darfur, we must all do what we can to get the message across, however small it may seem.

What’s the longest you have waited for a plumber to arrive after making an emergency call? Can you beat our wait yesterday of more than 14 hours?

I was mystified as to why the bathroom carpet was wet in places on Friday night, and it worsened yesterday morning. We called Anglian Water who we are insured with for emergency plumbing and drainage and they promised to send a plumber round. That was at 8am.

Later that day the water started seeping through the ceiling and dripping on to the dining room table. We called again and again. They said they were very busy, there were lots of other plumbing disasters, not once did they even give us the basic advice to switch off the water mains, but kept saying they would get back to us. They never did.

This company made £109 million profit last year, they didn’t even have the common sense to call out a few more plumbers to help them cope with their huge backlog. Or were they too tight-fisted?

Plumber Pete eventually arrived, tired and weary, at 10.15pm and sorted out the problem within minutes, tightening up some loose fittings on the ball valve and elsewhere around the loo.

It seems our problem was not high priority, it was regarded as a “controlled” leak because we could catch the water in a bowl, it was irrelevant that the ceiling with its light fittings might be soaking wet too. Surely every leak is important, water is a precious commodity in short supply right now.

Just like airlines pay out to customers for lengthy flight delays, companies like this making obscene profits should be forced to compensate customers they have considerably inconvenienced for unacceptable long delays and poor service. They would soon sharpen up their act.