[Ramrod]

Good article

While lecturing us on the threat of greater rainfall and rising sea levels, the government has reduced spending on flood defence. Every time we have floods, the Chancellor announces a few extra million, only to quietly slash funding once we have had a few dry months and the issue has disappeared from the political radar. This year, spending on river and sea defences — including capital expenditure and maintenance — will come to £695 million, a 4 per cent reduction in real terms over the past four years.

To put that into context, this year the government and consumers between them will spend £4.3 billion subsidising green energy. We keep being told that we cannot afford more money for flood walls and diversion channels, yet we are being forced to spend a far greater sum in an attempt to control the climate. Pursuing a policy of prevention rather than cure might be a sensible strategy with smoking-related diseases, but it is foolish when the preventative measure involves a grandiose and futile attempt to stop it raining so heavily and the curative one would consist of sound, practical measures to manage the flow of rivers.