If you care about the North, Boris, then get up here
AS boris Johnson once said: ‘There is something uniquely traumatic about being forced from your home by floods.’ These words were uttered by the Prime minister last november – apparently with heartfelt sympathy – following a visit to Fishlake in South Yorkshire, then reeling from devastating flooding.
Fast-forward to February and this devastation is starting to look increasingly less unique. Yorkshire has once again been battered by a succession of storms, resulting in yet more extensive flooding.
more than 100 homes in east Yorkshire were flooded over the weekend after the river aire burst its banks. This comes just days after the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire and parts of the Yorkshire dales suffered severe flooding. It is an experience being shared by hundreds of people in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Wales.
However, despite lives and businesses being wrecked by inundation, the situation isn’t of sufficient concern for the Prime minister to dig out his wellies and come see for himself.
Indeed, boris spent much of the parliamentary recess in seclusion at Chevening, the Government estate in Kent.
It’s ironic, isn’t it? mr Johnson’s Government has a thumping 80- seat majority – chiefly as a consequence of winning so many seats in the north. Virtually all of the communities impacted by the February floods went Tory in december’s election. Yet for all the talk of the debt he owed them, the Prime minister has so far failed to lend his personal support and empathy to the devastated communities who put him in power.
only when you come face to face with the devastation that losing one’s home brings can you understand the urgency of making sure it never happens again.
Why does boris Johnson no longer feel the need to expose himself to this reckoning?
be warned, mr Johnson, the people of Yorkshire have long memories, and only effective action for the region will make amends.
Following the boxing day floods in 2015, david Cameron donned the waterproofs and adopted the concerned look to pledge that ‘money was no object’ and would be spent where needed. Improved flood defences for the Calder Valley were signed off, but they have been beset by delays.
last month the same towns that flooded in 2015 were hit again, because the work on remediation measures hadn’t been completed. Families who’d just got their lives back on track found their homes and businesses under muddy water again.
Call me a bitter northerner but I doubt this would have been allowed to occur in the South east. The northern Powerhouse agenda to boost economic growth here, largely ignored under Theresa may’s premiership, is something mr Johnson wisely reactivated upon becoming Prime minister.
His pledges on ‘levelling up’ the country – the new term for addressing regional inequalities – were as effective as ‘Get brexit done’ in many parts of the north, which have long watched with dismay as successive governments prioritised the South east.
but we cannot have a northern Powerhouse if vast swathes of it flood regularly. WHO in their right mind is likely to sign off on large- scale investment into mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire – which has now flooded twice in less than five years?
We need a minister specifically charged with overseeing work to arrest flooding and coastal erosion.
We need a national infrastructure recovery fund to help local authorities rebuild damaged communities quickly.
and we want to see all commitments on flood defences made by current and previous premiers to be enacted in full, with no delay.
last year, a Tory MP in Yorkshire was critical of his own Government’s slow response to flooding in the Yorkshire dales.
His name was rishi Sunak and today he is Chancellor of the exchequer.
next week he will deliver his first budget. I hope there will be significant announcements on flood defences.
because if this Government is serious about ‘levelling up’ the country, then making sure it is safe from the elements seems like a good place to start.