News from the New Party

Monday, July 23, 2007

Acts of God

While large parts of central and southern England remain underwater, and indeed while water levels continue to rise in some places, any comment on the political implications of this disaster needs to be measured and restrained. It is not as though torrential rain is an alien concept on these shores, and neither is the weather within the control of the government. Occasionally what the insurance companies used to call "Acts of God" will happen.

Nevertheless some lessons need to be learned. The palpable embarrassment and frustration of the Environment Agency that the flood defences of Upton-upon-Severn were not in place because they were stuck in a traffic jam on the M5 is one good example. However, the sheer volume of water involved would have breached those flood defences in any case - you can't plan for everything, any more than you can legislate for everything. To some extent, then, most people, even those directly affected by the flooding, are content to excuse politicians from responsibility for all this. They do however like to think that they are paying attention. This is a lesson that Gordon Brown has learned since his tardy intervention in the Yorkshire flooding a few weeks ago.

It has, however, inexplicably eluded the Leader of the Opposition, who after dropping by his Witney constituency for a photo-call in his wellies, has flown off to Rwanda, protesting that he could not let down the people he was supposed to meet, and declaring that "issues like flooding, climate change and poverty could not be dealt with, without engaging with Africa". Coincidentally, on Tuesday he is to unveil the findings of the Tory policy group on global poverty. The Rwandans, who are, alas, no strangers to disaster, would surely have forgiven him for rearranging his trip. The people of Witney (indeed, Britain) might howeverconclude that photo-opportunities in Africa are more important to David Cameron than the fate of the people who voted for him. This is a severe political misjudgement that deserves to haunt him.

Predictably, the shroud-wavers of the climate change lobby are milking the present crisis for all it's worth. Rather like the millennialist Christians who jump up and down proclaiming the Second Coming every time there's an earthquake somewhere, they invite us to conclude that Tewkesbury is destined to be an island forever more and that the RNLI will have to set up a permanent station in Evesham. These are, remember, the same people who were promising three months ago that we would be baked to a crisp this summer.

Fortunately, the government seems to be making a reasonable job of responding to the situation. Funding for flood defences is set to increase to £800 million by 2010 in any event. The Housing Minister has rejected demands to ban housebuilding on the flood plain outright on the sensible grounds that York, for example, was built on a flood plain by the Romans. A decision effectively to relocate York would be a disproportionate response to the present crisis. But in any case, there will be time enough to discuss these issues when the waters have subsided. In the meantime, we extend our sympathies to those afflicted, and our gratitude to the emergency services who are working to help them.

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Acts of God