FlyTheNest

RogerOThornhill wrote:Just watching the BBC news and haven't heard a single word about the Environment Agency unlike in previous years when Chris Smith was the chair...funny that.

RogerOThornhill wrote:

RogerOThornhill wrote:Just watching the BBC news and haven't heard a single word about the Environment Agency unlike in previous years when Chris Smith was the chair...funny that.

Excellent - I seem to have provided that nasty little prick who infests this place every now and again with some new material...nothing better to do Rusty?

ephemerid wrote:Morning all.

HindleA - Legal aid rules are such a mess. The MoJ pretends that all have access to justice, but that's only true now if you happen to have money.
I understand that Gove is planning to stop the criminal court charges introduced by Grayling. They're a total mess too. I wonder if the people who paid those charges will get a refund if the policy is scrapped?

Paul - I hope you and yours are safe up there. There's more bad weather on the way later in the week.

rebeccariots2 wrote:Morning all.

Well I see someone at the top of the Environment Agency features in the G live blog on the floods - Rooke. He sounds like he is unwilling to criticise the government - avoiding comment on whether they could have done more since the last 'unprecendented' events in 2013 and 2014. But the union is already calling for a stop to the large number of redundancies planned for the Environment Agency - due to happen in 2016. What do this government think should happen in times of disaster and emergency? Rely on dwindling army numbers to be called in - as the staff from the fire services, Environment Agency, police etc will have been much reduced?

Is there such a thing as 'waterproof plaster' that is referred to on the G blog? Can it cope with volumes of water sitting against it for hours, perhaps days? How high can electrics be moved and still be practical to use? 6ft high power points?

rebeccariots2 wrote:Blimey John Gummer has come out and criticised this government for hypocrisy re climate change rhetoric and failure to match that with actions in the UK. Not someone I would have expected to say something that sensible.

Labour MP Simon Danczuk has become the latest person to question foreign aid at a time when money is needed for floods at home. The UK is one of the few rich nations to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid every year.

“Why do we spend money in Bangladesh when it needs spending in Great Britain? What we need to do is to sort out the problems which are occurring here and not focus so much on developing countries. That has to be our priority,” said the MP for Rochdale on BBC Radio Manchester.

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Labour MP Simon Danczuk has become the latest person to question foreign aid at a time when money is needed for floods at home. The UK is one of the few rich nations to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid every year.

“Why do we spend money in Bangladesh when it needs spending in Great Britain? What we need to do is to sort out the problems which are occurring here and not focus so much on developing countries. That has to be our priority,” said the MP for Rochdale on BBC Radio Manchester.

Dog whistle Danczuk.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ted-crisis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

RogerOThornhill wrote:

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Labour MP Simon Danczuk has become the latest person to question foreign aid at a time when money is needed for floods at home. The UK is one of the few rich nations to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid every year.

“Why do we spend money in Bangladesh when it needs spending in Great Britain? What we need to do is to sort out the problems which are occurring here and not focus so much on developing countries. That has to be our priority,” said the MP for Rochdale on BBC Radio Manchester.

Dog whistle Danczuk.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ted-crisis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

He's been reading the Mail and Telegraph which are saying the same thing.

Odd isn't it - we can't afford both...but apparently we're on the way to becoming the 4th largest economy. So we probably can afford to do both...

Elsewhere, it's been reported that his Cllr girlfriend has dumped him after criticism of them tweeting selfies at a time when there were floods in his constituency...

rebeccariots2 wrote:

Labour MP Simon Danczuk has become the latest person to question foreign aid at a time when money is needed for floods at home. The UK is one of the few rich nations to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on aid every year.

“Why do we spend money in Bangladesh when it needs spending in Great Britain? What we need to do is to sort out the problems which are occurring here and not focus so much on developing countries. That has to be our priority,” said the MP for Rochdale on BBC Radio Manchester.

Dog whistle Danczuk.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ted-crisis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

rebeccariots2 wrote:What do this government think should happen in times of disaster and emergency? Rely on dwindling army numbers to be called in - as the staff from the fire services, Environment Agency, police etc will have been much reduced?

ephemerid wrote:Morning all.

HindleA - Legal aid rules are such a mess. The MoJ pretends that all have access to justice, but that's only true now if you happen to have money.
I understand that Gove is planning to stop the criminal court charges introduced by Grayling. They're a total mess too. I wonder if the people who paid those charges will get a refund if the policy is scrapped?

Paul - I hope you and yours are safe up there. There's more bad weather on the way later in the week.

The UK’s biggest care-home operator has sold £20m worth of properties to an aggressive US investment fund as it reportedly struggles with a debt burden and diving profits.....

A report in November revealed a funding shortfall set to reach £1bn by 2020. Social-care spending by local authorities, themselves experiencing cuts in government funding, has fallen 17 per cent since 2009.

“If nothing in the funding regime changes within five years, there will be a projected loss of 37,000 care beds as funding fails to meet demand,” the report said. “This is greater in scale than the Southern Cross care-homes collapse in 2011, which affected 31,000 older people.”

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:

ephemerid wrote:Morning all.

HindleA - Legal aid rules are such a mess. The MoJ pretends that all have access to justice, but that's only true now if you happen to have money.
I understand that Gove is planning to stop the criminal court charges introduced by Grayling. They're a total mess too. I wonder if the people who paid those charges will get a refund if the policy is scrapped?

Paul - I hope you and yours are safe up there. There's more bad weather on the way later in the week.

Morning Ephemerid

Thanks for the wishes. Thankfully we live near the top of the valley and perched up above the River so we are likely to stay dry. We've just been watching the water rush past and head down the hills and praying for the poor folk down there.

Our friends in Mytholmroyd have not been so lucky. Their house is fine, but the school has apparently been devastated, with all the furniture and furnishings destroyed by contaminated water.

And the thing is, for all the "unprecedented", they had terrible floods almost as bad as recently as 2012 (I think) in Todmorden, Hebden and Mytholmroyd. It was blindingly obvious this was likely to happen again.

Finally, a technical note. Folk may not realise that there were two entirely separate River Calders that caused havoc this weekend, one in Lancs one in Yorks.

ephemerid wrote:I'm sure we are all deeply reassured to know that Donald Rumsfeld is now in charge of official flood pronouncements.

He said this - "Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones"

Well, yes.

So we have, flooding-wise, "known extremes". These are the ones we know about, ie. they have already happened. This is progress!
Then we have "unknown extremes" and we don't know about those because they haven't happened yet and are thus unknowable.
This means, if dear Donald is correct, that we don't know what we don't know and this is a category that could be difficult.

Obviously, the thing to do about the unknown unknowns in the weather department is to "waterproof" our homes in case the unknown extremes become known extremes at some unspecified - ie. unknown - point in the future, which itself is an unknown unknown.

As "money is no object" (see Home Counties) and "everything (an unknown unknown) will be done" (see the desolate North) we have a known known. This is marvellous, because it means that whatever it is that we don't know will not be an unknown unknown to be scared of but an unknown unknown that we are waterproofed against. When it becomes a known known everything will be fine and dandy.

Waterproofing is vital. As we do not know when the next unknown unknown will be coming along, and by then there will be no soldiers or firecrews or police or emergency services any more (and that is a known known) we must do what the government says and get waterproofing.

G4S, Serco, and others will be supplying sheets of durable plastic for the waterproofing, complete with holes for the nails required to attach the sheets to the floor. The holes pose no danger whatsoever. These waterproof sheets will be charged at £9.99p plus VAT per square metre.

That'll work. And that's a known known.

The Manchester Evening News has this story about the Mark Addy pub, which was flooded by the River Irwell. Allen Caldwell, the owner, says it’s a write-off.

"We don’t have insurance for flooding – no one would cover us because of the location." (Guardian)

UK floods: people told to waterproof homes because of increase in 'unknown extremes' - live
David Cameron: ‘Let’s see whether more needs to be done’

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... t-65767228" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

citizenJA wrote:

UK floods: people told to waterproof homes because of increase in 'unknown extremes' - live
David Cameron: ‘Let’s see whether more needs to be done’

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... t-65767228" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've no confidence in his government's capacity to keep me or anyone else safe and secure.

Home Office puts plans to cut interpreters' pay on hold
Proposals to reduce pay of more than 2,000 workers deferred amid fears that boycott could throw immigration system into chaos
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... ay-on-hold" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... Home Office interpreters are highly trained and have to go through counter-terrorism security clearance so it would not be easy for the Home Office to find replacements at short notice. The interpreters planned to boycott all interpreting assignments offered on 1 January 2016 and to roll out a series of one-day boycotts after that. These plans are on hold while discussions continue.

A meeting lasting more than two hours took place between interpreters and the Home Office on 21 December. At the meeting, officials warned the interpreters against speaking to the media. Following the meeting, the Facebook page for the Fair Payment Campaign has been removed...

nickyinnorfolk wrote:Danczuk and his now former girlfriend, councillor Claire Hamilton, have been attacked on Twitter for their 'moronic' selfies while his constituency was being ravaged by floods.

Apologies for link to Daily Heil - if Danczuk thought his regular Labour bashing missives for them were going to stop them having a (justified) go at him, he was sadly mistaken.

Incidentally, I seem to remember reading here that Claire Hamilton was a lone voice backing him up on his anti Corbyn tweets, as if she was just an objective Labour 'moderate', when all the time she was in a relationship with him!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... loods.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ohsocynical wrote:Air pollution 'darn sarf' must be pretty horrible again.

Mr Ohso and I woke bunged up and coughing and sneezing. When we went to get in the car a bit later, it was covered in thick fine dust, as is every other car on the road.

The Eastern European car wash team in Sainsbury's car park are doing a roaring business, including ten quid of ours plus tips. They do a brilliant job and by God they work hard.

George Eaton ‏@georgeeaton 3h3 hours ago
Forensic piece by @sjwrenlewis on flood defence spending and the "missing billion": http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... ainlyMacro+(mainly+macro" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)&m=1 …

ohsocynical wrote:

citizenJA wrote:

UK floods: people told to waterproof homes because of increase in 'unknown extremes' - live
David Cameron: ‘Let’s see whether more needs to be done’

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... t-65767228" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've no confidence in his government's capacity to keep me or anyone else safe and secure.

What's the difference between waterproof and water tight? I suppose he means the newest plastic doors and windows, but from my experience in a flash flood with four foot of water, even they won't keep it out eventually. There's no holding back a flood if it's high, or fast enough. Some of my neighbours who lived in a dip, said they watched the water creep up their patio door and it didn't leak, but as it rose higher they got panicky in case it suddenly gave. They'd have been trapped and in trouble, so they hoofed it out of there quick and let the water do its worst.

Has anyone asked Dave who's going to pay for all this waterproofing? Last year I was quoted just over a thousand pounds for the cheapest plastic front door and frame. [I didn't buy] My new windows cost over £3,000. That was twelve years ago, and their rubber seals are beginning to rot...

Probation reforms: Fresh blow for troubled part-privatisation as another provider slashes jobs
Exclusive: Working Links is planning hundreds of redundancies across the country
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 87891.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... The group, which is a public, private and voluntary-sector company whose shareholders include Capgemini, Manpower and the Department for Work & Pensions, is understood to be planning 200 job cuts in the Welsh probation service alone.

This has prompted Natalie Bennett, the Green Party leader who is a former probation worker, to write to Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, demanding he “use whatever powers you have to mitigate job losses”. The letter, seen by The Independent, added that Ms Bennett has “grave professional concerns about our capacity in Wales to give offenders the care, attention, and time they require”.

The reforms were overseen by the former Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling. He privatised 70 per cent of the service in England and Wales, with only the most dangerous offenders still looked after by the state. ...