Sound-bite Dave has come to the rescue again.
As thousands of homes are affected by flooding in Cumbria, Leeds, York, Manchester and Scotland, slick Dave announced an ‘extra £40 million’ was to be spent of dealing with the flood damage in Yorkshire. Not only that … he has also appointed a ‘Yorkshire Floods Envoy’ in the person of Robert Goodwill MP, to go to Yorkshire and talk reassuringky to TV camera crews.
Robert Goodwill is the Conservative who, when he was an MEP in 2000, told the BBC’s Today programme “I fly from Leeds/Bradford to Brussels and we get a set fee of around £500. But I can buy a cheaper ticket, economy class for between £160 and £250, I can pocket the difference. And of course as a capitalist, as a British Conservative, I see it as a challenge to buy cheap tickets and make some profit on the system“. Hopefully Robert will dutifully find a way to syphon off some of Cameron’s £40 million for his personal benefit.
But even as soundbite Dave talks about his £40m ‘extra’ the Labour Shadow Environment Secretary points out that there have been cuts of over £500 billion over the last 5 years in the budget for maintenance of existing flood defences.
I do not live in one of these flooded areas (thank god) but if I did I would not be reassured by Mr Glib and his Floods Envoy.