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Farage Ltd and Similar Watch

Deutsch Wolf said:
Of course they should. They aren't failing to do so because the country can't afford to do it, so Farage's tubthumping as ever misses the point entirely.
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My point is not politically aimed at support for Farage, it is a general complaint about where my tax is spent.
There seem to be bloody hundreds of "charity events" like Sport Aid and the like and a large amount of that money goes overseas. The normal people who are now suffering from the mental, adverse weather will be the ones who donate to these charity events yet the help they receive is slow, clumsy and halfarsed
 
darlowolf64 said:
My point is not politically aimed at support for Farage, it is a general complaint about where my tax is spent.
There seem to be bloody hundreds of "charity events" like Sport Aid and the like and a large amount of that money goes overseas. The normal people who are now suffering from the mental, adverse weather will be the ones who donate to these charity events yet the help they receive is slow, clumsy and halfarsed
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Yes, it's a case of terrible administration and the knock on effect of the Tories' ideology of cutting all public services to the bone. It isn't as simple as "why are we giving Country X money when we have people suffering here". The two aren't in any way linked.
 
MARKakaJIM said:
I suppose they could just throw a loads of notes at Somerset and hope they soak up all the water like a roll of Bounty, easy.
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Or they could of prepared correctly years ago when the local communities asked for help. Proper flood barriers, advance preparation for the events that have unfolded. I guess you're not up to your arse in flood water so it's easy to be flippant
 
MARKakaJIM said:
I suppose they could just throw a loads of notes at Somerset and hope they soak up all the water like a roll of Bounty, easy.
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Marka. sometimes you type before engageing your brain, this is a clear instance.

There are people in the uk, working taxpayers who cannot return to their homes, are without power to light and heat their homes, and who have no possibilty to repair the damage done from their own pockets.

The government has a duty to help them now, first and foremost, and to make changes to ensure his does not happen again every winter.

Perhaps they most need to accept or at least acknowledge the argument for global warming or climate change, and apart from creating new environmental taxes to make a quick buck, get off their asses and meet these problems head on with a sensible plan.

Frankly if another billion is needed in Bangladesh, or needed on the south coast, there is only one place it should go, and that neither makes me racist or a UKIP fan.
 
It isn't an either or situation though. We can afford overseas aid and domestic aid - Farage is simply trying to create a choice that doesn't need to be made. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we don't have to stop overseas aid in order to help our own people.

There is a discussion to be had as to whether we should be sending aid to say the Indian government while they are investing in an expensive space programme but that is not the same debate as "use overseas aid money to pay for domestic aid".

Overseas aid is also not a simple humanitarian act - there are significant commercial interests associated with providing aid, and those commerical interests are often to the detriment of those receiving the aid.
 
darlowolf64 said:
Or they could of prepared correctly years ago when the local communities asked for help. Proper flood barriers, advance preparation for the events that have unfolded. I guess you're not up to your arse in flood water so it's easy to be flippant
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It's not quite as simple as you make it sound though is it?

They can't exactly stick up barriers along the entire length of every river in the country can they? They do their best to protect the larger concentrations of the population with these barriers, even somewhere the size of Bewdley has a proper flood defence system through the middle of town and that's currently being worked to a point where they've had to close the bridge over the Severn but the barrier is still doing it's job. All you're doing there though is pushing the problem somewhere else along the river, if the water can't spill over the top in Bewdley it'll either carry on downstream to burst banks elsewhere or get backed up before them and flood somewhere else.

Flood prevention is a complex art.

Of course the whole thing isn't helped either when you've got fairly substantial settlements built on flood plains, flood plains which grow as settlements right on the rivers get these flood barriers to protect them and force more water elsewhere. It's bad what's happening to these people but surely if they put a bit of thought into where they're deciding to live they could make a fairly safe assumption that floodplains/near to a river is going to increase the chances of flooding, it's natural, it can't always be controlled.

Most of these flood prevention measures are designed to cope with a 1 in 100 year storm, big problem being that we're getting that sort of storm at the moment, so no surprise that they're struggling when they're pushed to breaking point, it's not like they're failing under average rainfall conditions.

None of this really makes much difference now anyway, it's all preventative measures, that stage has gone, until the next storm comes around, what they need now is to recover and that isn't any easier, how do you suddenly get rid of such a massive volume of excess water? A problem which is only compounded by the duration of this weather, even places which aren't flooding are completely sodden so there's nowhere to push this excess water, the water table can only rise so far and then you get no further infiltration into the ground.

You're never going to be able to fully control nature.
 
MARKakaJIM said:
None of this really makes much difference now anyway, it's all preventative measures, that stage has gone, until the next storm comes around, what they need now is to recover and that isn't any easier, how do you suddenly get rid of such a massive volume of excess water? A problem which is only compounded by the duration of this weather, even places which aren't flooding are completely sodden so there's nowhere to push this excess water, the water table can only rise so far and then you get no further infiltration into the ground.
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I suppose they could just throw a loads of notes at Somerset and hope they soak up all the water like a roll of Bounty..................
 
darlowolf64 said:
I suppose they could just throw a loads of notes at Somerset and hope they soak up all the water like a roll of Bounty..................
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Well it does fit your 'money=problems solved' ideology doesn't it?
 
Not sure that its just about money as its more relevant as to how & where you spend rather than how much you have (though the Environment Agency budget is apparently £1.2billion)

The Somerset Levels will always need managing as its essentially a man made area - this needs doing by local people who understand the environment they operate in rather than from London by people who have no understanding of local conditions or history. Interestingly the Norfolk Broads (again effectively a man made area) have not had problems so far, but then they fought off the Environment Agencies control & still manage things locally.

An object lesson for Central Government possibly!
 
MARKakaJIM said:
Well it does fit your 'money=problems solved' ideology doesn't it?
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Oh so you know what my Ideology is?
I wouldn't say listening to people who know what they are talking about and then implementing strategies to prevent or preempt a disaster is just common sense. Why else are the government apologising for mistakes made since the last round of floods?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26106290
 
darlowolf64 said:
Oh so you know what my Ideology is?
I wouldn't say listening to people who know what they are talking about and then implementing strategies to prevent or preempt a disaster is just common sense. Why else are the government apologising for mistakes made since the last round of floods?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26106290
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Well your initial complaint was that the government were spending money elsewhere, so seems a pretty safe assumption you think money is the answer?

There are always going to need to be areas which can be sacrificed in times of flood, either by damming rivers upstream and having that land sacrificed permanently but allowing you to attenuate the excess water and control it's flow downstream or by leaving areas of the countryside as flood plains. If people build on those flood plains, like they have done, then they're obviously open to potential problems, as they're facing now. If people really think dredging the rivers to increase the depth by a few feet is going to create enough extra volume to account for the massive increase in rainfall we've witnessed lately then they'll be in for another almighty shock when everywhere floods again next time round.

Fighting nature is a battle you're never really goint to win, softer engineering solutions are needed at times when trying to counter these sort of problems.
 
MARKakaJIM said:
Well your initial complaint was that the government were spending money elsewhere, so seems a pretty safe assumption you think money is the answer?

There are always going to need to be areas which can be sacrificed in times of flood, either by damming rivers upstream and having that land sacrificed permanently but allowing you to attenuate the excess water and control it's flow downstream or by leaving areas of the countryside as flood plains. If people build on those flood plains, like they have done, then they're obviously open to potential problems, as they're facing now. If people really think dredging the rivers to increase the depth by a few feet is going to create enough extra volume to account for the massive increase in rainfall we've witnessed lately then they'll be in for another almighty shock when everywhere floods again next time round.

Fighting nature is a battle you're never really going to win, softer engineering solutions are needed at times when trying to counter these sort of problems.
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My initial argument was nothing was spent when advise was given, the advise was ignored. No, perhaps dredging alone will not totally stop flooding but a number of measures combined will significantly reduce the threat of flooding and thus reduce the amount of damage caused. It was you who flippantly suggested "throwing money on the problem so it might soak up the water". Maybe if you, family members or friends were affected by this disaster, for that is what it is, you might be a little more magnanimous.
 
darlowolf64 said:
My initial argument was nothing was spent when advise was given, the advise was ignored. No, perhaps dredging alone will not totally stop flooding but a number of measures combined will significantly reduce the threat of flooding and thus reduce the amount of damage caused. It was you who flippantly suggested "throwing money on the problem so it might soak up the water". Maybe if you, family members or friends were affected by this disaster, for that is what it is, you might be a little more magnanimous.
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Clearly a joke in response to your, and others, complaint that our government were sending money elsewhere when there were problems at home, like some how that was going to solve the problems. It's not a problem that you just throw money at, it needs to be thought through.

I don't have a great deal of sympathy with those who are affected, you live somewhere in the vicinity of a river then it doesn't take an awful lot of thought to realise that flooding could perhaps be an issue one day. Just like moving to San Francisco might mean you suffer some problems with earthquakes, or moving to other areas of the US is going to bring you into contact with tornadoes and such, they should've known the risks when they moved there. Would you have such sympathy with a bloke living half way up a volcano complaining about an eruption?

Anyway, there are measures that individuals could take against their properties in lieu of bigger, government funded defences covering great areas, doesn't seem to be much evidence of that in many cases though, so again they lose some of my sympathy there. I've seen pictures of one guy who looks to be out in the middle of nowhere and he's built himself a clay wall around the boundary of his property, looks like his own private little island in the middle of all that mess, fair play that man!
 
At this point in time, there are parts of the country that are in desperate need of assistance, and surely that should be the priority.
 
I know for a fact that David Cameron sits there every day with a big pile of money, and has to decide: Foreign aid, or flood defences?
 
The nice thing about that line of argument is that its so versatile.

Example:

'Why are the government spending billions on Trident when we need money spending on flood defences?'

See?
 
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