1402 days ago
Before tedious, Guardian-reading loons yak on about how global warming, sorry climate change, is not the precursor to widespread droughts in Britain – as we were told up until c 2010 – but now causes floods, I offer a few facts. The river Dee, as I write, is 9.624 metres deep here which is the highest since October 2000 (9.36 metres). But it is less deep and the area less flooded than in 1949 before all that global warming nonsense was invented. Rivers flood from time to time, get over it. Having said all of that, this flood is a pain as you can see below.
3933 days ago
he Environment Agency is in the headlines again. This time not for its obvious ineptitude in dealing with floods but for its obvious skill in pissing away cash on matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with its stated remit.
The list of shameful waste is a long one. £639 on mugs stating “Some people are gay, get over it” for its staff, £30,000 sponsoring the Birmingham gay pride march, £13,631 hiring meeting rooms at Fulham, Aston Villa and Sheffield United all of which are located within a few miles of where the Agency has its own offices; £3,600 sponsoring a speech and reception at the Royal Society of Arts (a speech given by EA Chairman Lord Smith); £1,056 on pin badges for 500 staff working on an Olympics event; £1,134 was spent on a plush dinner at Hotel Du Vin in Bristol for board members of the Environment Agency and Natural England to discuss ‘joint working and collaboration, etc, etc, etc.
As ever the issue here is that those spending the money (quango bosses) have a very different agenda from those providing the cash (the grateful taxpayer). I support gay pride marches and also a football club but if I want to give my money that is my call. The EA is giving other people’s money away.
I am sure that if one goes through the fine detail of how other Government agencies spend taxpayer’s cash one will see similar tales of how cash is used to sponsor pet projects outside the core remit and also to give senior staff a jolly good time. The State and State funded bodies’ ALWAYS
3940 days ago
What is worse than having your house flooded out? Or indeed being in any sort of human tragedy? It is having a troupe of politicians coming to see you afterwards. And so this week Cameron, Pickles, Farage some Lib Dems you have never heard of and ex Labour Minister Chis Smith (now running the Environment Agency) have all trouped off to Somerset to “see for themselves”, to show they care and to offer vague promises they know they cannot keep.
If I am ever involved in any great human tragedy and am lying on hospital or am waist deep in flood water my one request is that no politician comes to visit me. It will only make me feel more angry and resentful.
And so to win a 50% off token for Maribelle’s I offer this picture of UKIP leader Nigel Farage as he paid homage to the flood victims. I shall be dealing with his ludicrous but populist suggestions later. Please post your captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is:
“ I am NOT a politician so you can trust me…it is this long”
