Here’s a piece of de ja vue, courtesy of Private Eye’s issue for 10th-23rd January 2014. It shows former Prime Minister, David Cameron, surveying one of the areas then hit by disastrous flooding. Dodgy Dave has to bear some responsibility for the disastrous, as it was his government that cut funding for the flood defences.
Well, it’s six years later, we’ve got a Tory government that’s promising to increase funding to the public infrastructure, and Tweezer declared that ‘austerity was over’. But there has been no increase in public spending, or at least, none I’ve been aware of. And the country’s now hit by disastrous floods.
Which shows that almost nothing has changed.
Except one thing:
David Cameron at least visited some of the areas that had been hit, like the Somerset Levels, and pledged more funding – funding that should never have been cut anyway.
Boris Johnson, however, is nowhere to be seen. He’s retreated to Chevening, a 115 room mansion in Kent. He’s probably hiding from having to answer awkward questions about why he thought it would be a good idea to hire Andrew Sabisky, a racist, misogynist eugenics nut. Or if he holds the same vile views.
It also shows his own, cynical attitude to public welfare. Johnson hasn’t called any emergency meetings. He did before he was elected, but that was when he needed people’s votes. Now he has them, and is in No. 10, although obviously not physically, he just doesn’t care. But he has sent his deputy official spokesman – not his official spokesman, mind – to reassure us that he is receiving briefing updates and that the flooding is terrible for people affected.
How very reassuring!
Mike in his article points out that one reason Johnson may be dodging this issue is because it raises awkward questions about climate change and global warming. But Donald Trump and the Republic Party don’t believe in it, and are passing laws to gut their Environmental Protection Agency and prevent anyone in it from publishing any research showing that it exists. Because the Republicans and Trump are also heavily funded by the fossil fuel lobby, particularly the Koch brothers. And so they pretend that it doesn’t exist.
But Johnson needs Trump’s trade deal, which will do precious little for the country except hand over British industries and utilities, including a privatised NHS, to the Americans. But it will make Johnson and the Tories backing it rich, so Johnson wants to dodge the issue as well.
Meaning that as Britain starts sinking into the sea and primordial ooze, Johnson is holed up in his mansion hoping that it will all go away.
Tags: Andrew Sabisky, Austerity, Boris Johnson, Climate Change, Conservatives, David Cameron, Donald Trump, Environmental Protection Agency, Eugenics, Flooding, Global Warming, Kent, Misogyny, NHS, NHS Privatisation, Private Eye, racism, Republican Party, Trade
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
February 19, 2020 at 10:29 am |
Reblogged this on Tory Britain!.
February 19, 2020 at 11:24 am |
And this is a problem that isn’t going to go away, it just seems to get worse year on year with widespread flooding in various parts of the country. Something has to be done. We’ll have to go back to living on hilltops. Build houses on high ground, with roads and infrastructure to access and service them, or we’ll have to abandon the valleys and leave them to nature. Stop building on flood plains. Invest in effective flood prevention defences. Another few decades of this and the country’s going to be under water if nothing is done.