We have a so-called "Environment Minister" who, at the present time of national environmental emergency refuses to appear on radio or television either to discuss the situation or to explain what steps the government are taking to ameliorate the predicament of those suffering...What is going on that someone is his position is allowed to get away with this ...??
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He was interviewed on TV on 16th February while in Yorkshire discussing flood defences - on Sky News and BBC News (possibly the same interview?)Originally posted by Maclintick View Post
The frequency with which Environment Ministers are replaced reflects the government's (lack of) interest in these matters. -
Possibly the lesser of two evils? When Ministers are active the outcome is not reassuring, vide Priti Vac - sorry Patel. And what is going on is a government with unassailable, uncontrolled, unaccountable power.The chances of GE doing anything to mitigate the effects of this https://www.theguardian.com/society/...-are-in-charge , which contributes to the flooding and wider environmental problems, are as a consequence less than zero I would imagine.Originally posted by Maclintick View PostComment
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My daughter and future husband bought a house close to a flood plain and water meadows in 2015. Two years previously the street had been flooded including neighbouring properties - but it was the only house they could afford in the town where they are obliged by personal circumstances to live. By the time they bought, the council had added some flood defences (watertight gate etc) to their property.
Since then a flood barrier has been constructed on their side of the river. A watertight gate can block their road, where it begins to cross the watermeadows about 150 metres from their front door: it was closed last week as the whole of the flood plain flooded right up to the barrier.
These measures are possible with the will and with funding. There has been some discussion on the news of the fiscal issues for local councils. This is still the legacy of 'austerity'!
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A process of gathering unlearning has been in operation since Thacther and Joseph introduced their British version of monetarism, as practised in Chile under her dear friend's dictatorship. What Keynes and others had learned from the lessons of the 1931 worldwide Slump and Roosevelt's New Deal was to borrow and invest in infrastructural projects, subsidising re-tooling in preparedness for the boom to inevitably come, thereby keeping poeple such as the otherwise unemployed buying stuff they could otherwise have not afforded, occupied, and trained up in readiness for business's eventual needs. Flood prevention and other basic environmental tasks these days carried out by mostly young people immediately recognisable for their red uniforms on Community Action to signify them as social lepers would be part of today's solutions pro tem. Pressures deliberately engineered into the system such as "just-in-time" act as a sort of warning that this is the cost of freedom and the bad choices made by people inveigled into unsustainable consumerism: once the Faustian pact has been committed they become ineluctable captives. This is the sort of thing Labour had in mind for a Corbyn government - hardly socialism in the sense of taking over everything and running it under workers' control unless you happen to think that anything that challenges the logic of capitalist monetarism must automatically be socialist, but a practical step towards reconfiguring people's thinking that the world ends at the front door or garden gate in that direction.Originally posted by kernelbogey View PostMy daughter and future husband bought a house close to a flood plain and water meadows in 2015. Two years previously the street had been flooded including neighbouring properties - but it was the only house they could afford in the town where they are obliged by personal circumstances to live. By the time they bought, the council had added some flood defences (watertight gate etc) to their property.
Since then a flood barrier has been constructed on their side of the river. A watertight gate can block their road, where it begins to cross the watermeadows about 150 metres from their front door: it was closed last week as the whole of the flood plain flooded right up to the barrier.
These measures are possible with the will and with funding. There has been some discussion on the news of the fiscal issues for local councils. This is still the legacy of 'austerity'!Comment
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....they know it only takes a determined ferile crowd of bystanders with axes to grind to interupt and take over the news agenda....bong chingComment
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I like your post S_A. I have to admit that my daughter and husband live in a Tory seat in affluent Surrey. So the admirable flood prevention scheme which kept the waters from their sitting room and kitchen was a proper job done by a construction company, and not by Community Action folk.... But I accept those fiscal arguments, and wish we had a more centrist government. I fear that we are in for 10 years (at least) of the present lot.Comment
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I have to admit very grudgingly that one blue-wall Tory MP (representeing a flooded region and posing with wellies and umbrella) gave the perfect put-down to Matt Frei on Channel 4 News the other day. He asked her why Boris hadn't been oop thar in person to assess the situation for himself. Without missing a beat she retorted, 'Well you're interviewing me from a studio in London. You seem to know all about it'.Comment
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Well, the obvious come back to that would be ...'I'm not in a position to do anything about the flooding, but the Prime Minister very much is, and shouldn't he be seen conditions first hand for himself?'Originally posted by ardcarp View PostComment
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She'll go far! Punching the air for Boris and punching the media all in one go. Is the PLP trying furiously to recruit her before she's promoted beyond their grasp?Originally posted by ardcarp View PostComment
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....agreed, but she timed it to perfection, sticking the dagger in just as the interview time was up.Well, the obvious come back to that would be ...'I'm not in a position to do anything about the flooding, but the Prime Minister very much is,Comment
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A similarly 'robust' interviewee style adopted by David Davies MP (in Barbour and Wellies) trying to put down Cathy Newman on Channel Four News tonight: but getting from her as good as he gave.
(So where is the Prime Minister...?)Comment
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