Effective flood management means slowing the flow – attenuating flood peaks by holding back water where it does the least harm, and releasing it gradually. In some cases (such as the Somerset Levels) the most effective option would be to stop draining and farming the land altogether, and allow it to revert to marsh, greatly reducing costs while restoring wildlife habitats.
Given the climate change driven spread of dengue, malaria and other agues, is this really a wise idea?
He just wants to make it more like his work environment…
In a small, over-populated island, all rural land should be designated for house-building, solar farms (subject to the whims of nature), ditto bird mincers and marshland. Any surplus should be made available to the cinnabar moth, voles, shrews, badgers and deer. Farming? – Pah: let the people eat larvae dug out of their own feet.
Better by far, TMB, to not let that island become overpopulated (by immigration, legal and illegal ) in the first place…
If he really thinks something should be done, he should advocate improving the downstream drainage to dump the stuff in the ocean as quick as possible.
You definitely don’t need all the IDB’s packed with Greenies!!
No problem. Labour can just make it illegal for the malaria parasite to enter the UK.
stop draining and farming the land altogether
Just Stop Eating.
Labour’s first stage of government resembles a vast forensic excavation. As it works through the Conservatives’ midden of horrors, it discovers an ever greater legacy of underinvestment, neglect and corruption. However disappointing the new government’s compromises might be, we shouldn’t forget how overwhelming this task must feel.
Pretending Labour is some sort of well intentioned attempt at government, rather than a host of flies and maggots eating the corpse of our country.
“underinvestment, neglect and corruption”
Nothing corrupt about Labour. According to noted expert on such matters Father Ted Crilly, those clothes were just resting in her wardrobe.
“we shouldn’t forget how overwhelming this task must feel”.
But the bloody tories did nothing for over a decade. How can it be so hard?
Labour doublethink:
The Tory bastards subjected the country to austerity for 14 years which is why all our public services are shit.
The Tory bastards spent money like a drunken sailor for 14 years which is why the public finances are shit.
And of course, the somerset levels flooded predominantly due to farming and not because they stopped dredging* or maintaining the pumps.
*Apparently, according to ‘experts’, dredging makes little difference to flooding. Which is why they dredged the rivers after the 2014 floods…….
Maintaining the Levels is easy: hundreds of years of work by the locals means you just have to dredge the rivers and dig out the ditches every now and again. Destroying it takes work…which the Greens are happy to supply 🙁
They could do the same to the Fens afterwards, which might inconvenience a certain ‘friend’ of this blog.
George wants to create a vast malarial swamp
Well, the lefties and Greens want to import the third-world so we might as well make them feel at home.
Steve:
Pretending Labour is some sort of well intentioned attempt at government, rather than a host of flies and maggots eating the corpse of our country.
Outstanding!
an ever greater legacy of underinvestment, neglect
If only. The last thing Britain needs is the government to spend more money and to further interfere in our lives.
I don’t know. Modern agriculture, dwarf stocks, fertilisers, has reached almost all the world, so if there’s parts of Britain where it is significantly non profitable to farm we should let it go.
There will be other ways of dealing with the risks from stagnant waters, don’t know how other countries do it, you only need a small flow like a canal to avoid it, but that’s the environment agency problem, not one to design your farming system around. Imv of course.
Malaria is a herd disease. I know nothing about dengue. But as agriculture becomes more efficient and yields increase, more arable farmland becomes uncultivated. Back of the envelope it’s not out of the question to allow land to revert to marshes.
The late Christopher Booker described Moonbat as the most dangerous columnist in Britain because he basically want to kill off half the population. I was interested in the reference to the Somerset Levels because this is due to Moonbat’s ongoing attack on Owen Paterson, the only Environment secretary who stood up to ‘the Green Blob’ – He’s like an elephant. never forgets.
. . . if there’s parts of Britain where it is significantly non profitable to farm we should let it go.
That’s what we’re told about most of the east coast; just let it get washed away.
It’s Monidiot…
Like a certain tuberous bag o’ wind infesting Ely, any idea that’s promoted by them is worth not doing.
In a sense they do a service to humanity by making decisions that much easier..
Pretending Labour is some sort of well intentioned attempt at government, rather than a host of flies and maggots eating the corpse of our country.
Exactly! So why did you not vote tactically to prevent a Labour government? The equivalence/uniparty thesis is unsustainable: just compare manifestos…. The Tories have been dire, but Labour is ALWAYS worse…
Vote for one set of flies & maggots rather than the the other, Theo? About time you acknowledged, Theo, that the current economic plight of the UK is 100% the responsibility of the Tory Party. Labour have only been in government for weeks. The Labour Party is there because the Tory Party put them there.
Theo – So why did you not vote tactically to prevent a Labour government?
As we’ve explained to you before, Theo, there was no tactical voting option that would have prevented a Labour government after the Long Con.
The Cons weren’t trying to prevent a Labour government, they were keeping the seat warm for Labour and trying to prevent any legitimately right wing MPs getting elected. They were counting on being able to trick impressionable people such as yourself one last time.
just compare manifestos
I must confess it has never occurred to me to read their manifestos, but equally I don’t read horoscopes or newspapers either. And I don’t watch the news.
Am I missing something?
Even now the useless twats of the Tory Party are saying “Bugger Reform, we need to move towards the Lib Dem’s because they are the real challenge”.
Fortunately, with idiots like Tugenough in charge of the Tories, they’ll never come back from the political wilderness.
Vote Reform!
Vote Reform!
Personally, I think it’s a bit late for that. Too wet. I think you’ll probably end with something like AfD or even further to the right, socially. Economically, it really doesn’t matter. It’s far past economics now. When the barbarian hordes are scaling the walls you don’t worry about the price of bread.
BiS
Vote for one set of flies & maggots rather than the the other, Theo?
Er…the evidence-free equivalence hypothesis is believed only by those who find thinking hard. You get more flies and maggots with Labour – always!
About time you acknowledged, Theo, that the current economic plight of the UK is 100% the responsibility of the Tory Party.
Simply not true! Many of the UK’s economic problems date back to the 1945 Labour government’s ‘reforms’ (eg the NHS) and then to the Blair era. The great financial crash occurred in 2008 and its long tail is still with us. And then there was covid, which the Tories mishandled – though Starmer and Farage called for even longer lockdowns, etc.
JG – they should, it’s pitiful when nobodies such as Robert Jenrick pretend to be right wing.
They’re so tone deaf their crude parody of a right winger only reveals how much they despise you (remember, Treeza May thought we’d be happy with the PR stunt of a mobile billboard telling immigrants to go home. Tories are very smart.)
Rishi’s “bring back conscription” nonsense showed what he thinks of Tory voters: slow-witted elderly gammon who still mentally live in the 50’s somehow. They can barely keep themselves from sniggering at their own voters, but then con men usually enjoy the thrill of deception.
Oh FFS, Theo. They had 13 years to sort it out. No excuses. So why vote for failures.
Try to understand something. For the people who want their country back, this two stage project is going very well. Now all the people who like multi-culturalism & diversity have got what they want. M-C & D on steroids & the other bunch of shitheads are tanked. Now the country will be ripe for a far-right coup. The very best outcome by far.
V_P,
“ I was interested in the reference to the Somerset Levels because this is due to Moonbat’s ongoing attack on Owen Paterson, the only Environment secretary who stood up to ‘the Green Blob’ ”
When I was working on the rural Mobile Infratest Project for DCMS DEFRA were a major stakeholder so we had lots of meetings with them. Paterson was SoS at DEFRA at the time and I heard one of their senior officials refer to him as the “swivel eyed loon’s swivel eyed loon”.
I knew then that thee term Blob meant.
@decnine – “Labour can just make it illegal for the malaria parasite to enter the UK.”
Like the last lot tried with Covid? Even though Australia and New Zealand proved it could be done, and we’re an island, somehow we have the type of govenment who attempts it and fails.
The UK is a major international cross roads, particularly between Europe and North America, but also other global regions, whereas NZ and Oz are at the end of a thousand mile cul-de-sac (not a criticism, simply a fact of geography). I think it would have been almost impossible for the UK to exclude Covid, even if we’d acted instantly, it was probably already present.
@Chris Miller – “I think it would have been almost impossible for the UK to exclude Covid”
If it was indeed impossible, then the correct action would have been to devote the resources to handling it – not waste any on a futile defence. But politicians love to be seen to be doing stuff and have little care for how well it will work.