New Waterways Charity - the biggest con we've ever seen?

If the Government had come along and said to waterways people, "We are going to slash your budget so that you have about half what you actually need to keep the system going properly and you are never going to get any more regardless of inflation," there would have been uproar.
If it added the information that the waterways would continue to be run by the same bunch of former estate agents and accountants the politicians themselves had criticised as overpaid - and they would retain their bloated pay, perks and pension - we would conclude they were taking the piss.
If they then said that pathetic level of funding would disappear after losing much of its value, after a few years then most waterways people would conclude they were being abandoned by a government happy to abandon all responsibility for one of the country's great national assets and see a key part of our heritage in terminal decline.
A great campaign would have had ministers' ears ringing. There would have been narrowboat flotillas outside Parliament and the IWA and all the other defenders of the system would be shouting about the stupidity of such a plan.
So, how is it all right to do all that if the body left to pick up the pieces the Government has decided to throw away is given the title of a charity and finds committee seats for people who would otherwise be campaigning against what is happening?
How easily we are being conned into agreeing with the lie that a new waterways charity will make everything all right.
It's not too late to wake up and start fighting.