Sack the Government ‘idiots’ to blame for the flooding crisis

I DO not know which idiot in the present Government decided to give away £8.3bn of our money to foreign regimes which are often totally corrupt and seem to dislike the UK intensely, but he should be sacked tomorrow, if not sooner.

We all know that there are thousands of our own citizens living in flooded houses, thousands of acres of irreplaceable farm land destroyed under many feet of water and hundreds of small businesses desperate for money who will be unable to insure or sell their properties in the future. Most people with any common sense realise that this terrible flooding is caused mainly by the incompetence of the Government, so it would be a timely gesture by David Cameron if he decided that all next year’s foreign aid budget was to be distributed to our own UK flood victims whether they are householders, farmers or business owners in the flooded regions rather than being given away to foreign governments to be frittered away on fast jets, fast cars and fast women.

From: David W. Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold.

THE former socialist MP Chris Smith who is now the discredited chairman of the Environment Agency must surely resign as it is obvious that he is completely out of touch with the serious problems of flooding affecting the South-West and elsewhere (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, February 8).

It is also timely that in future appointees to such bodies as the Environment Agency should come from suitably qualified persons who have had first hand experience of the outside world.

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

OUR country is literally drowning and what are our MPs wasting their time on? Smoking in cars. It beggars belief what this lot are really up to and paid for. Added to that we have the odious Environment Agency chairman Lord Smith unable to make a clear coherent statement each time he appears on television.

If ever there was a case for doing away with jobs for the boys, this is surely one.

From: Bob Swallow, Townhead Avenue, Settle.

ONE cannot but help wonder when matters will improve in the Somerset Levels. Paradoxically there might just be a little light at the end of a very long tunnel, this due to the more recent flooding around the Thames.

This, of course, is Tory heartland and must be causing some concern in the Palace of Westminster where no doubt they have an Ark or similar available for when their turn for inundation arrives.

It would be fun were it not so serious to listen to the bleating of politicians trying to score points off each other.

The Environment Agency though surely has a point over its reduced finances. How about cancelling all foreign aid and diverting it to help the flood victims? Any left over might usefully be applied to pensioners struggling to make ends meet.

From: John Theobald, Garforth.

THE anguish of those in the South who are flooded out, some of them for the second or third time, is heartbreaking. The mantra has been “dredge the rivers”. But the seas smash into our coasts, with terrible results. And no one can control the seas.

Many solutions will be aired but all of them are not enough. Ask Holland where they spend five times what we spend on keeping floods at bay. We need to talk about several billions of pounds of expenditure to make a small dent in the problem. But money spent on this means less money elsewhere and that spells trouble.

My solution? Scrap the proposed high speed railway and use the £60-plus billions on flood prevention.

From: David F Chambers, Sladeburn Drive, Northallerton.

ERIC Pickles has officially apologised for the distressing flood situation, regretted that his department was wrongly advised by the Environment Agency reports, and promised to waste no time in rectifying the mistakes.

Can we hope soon for a closely similar statement from the Department for Energy and Climate Change with regard to electricity supply policy?

It is disturbing to learn that regulations from the EU were a causative factor in each of these woeful situations.

From: Grenville Horsfall, Victoria Avenue, Clifton, Brighouse.

ON TV’s Countryfile (February 9) officers from the Environment Agency made statements that they did not have the resources to stop losing land to the sea on the East Coast. Stop giving billions to the EU. Stop giving millions to other countries who cry poverty. Charity begins at home. With all the money given away we can repair dykes, dredge all the rivers, build sea defences, make our country safe from floods.

Gibraltar and many other countries have successfully claimed land from the sea. Time our government came into the real life and used some common sense.