Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TRAITOR BORIS13
People of flooded town slam PM as he finally visits He vows to ‘get Bewdley done’ & boost defence cash
THE furious people of flood-ravaged Bewdley branded Boris Johnson a traitor when he finally visited and told him: “Do your f***ing job.”
The Prime Minister, slammed repeatedly in recent weeks for failing to show his face as communities across the nation suffer, toured the devastated Worcestershire town yesterday.
One of the locals who could not contain his anger during the visit was special needs teacher David Farmer, 47.
He said: “It was such a stage-managed PR affair. I shouted ‘traitor’ at him because in my opinion that’s what he is.
“He just waved, he is such a PR man. He is nothing but the Lord Haw Haw of the present day. He has only finally turned up here because it is an incredibly Tory town.
“I know he announced more funding for defences but in my opinion that is just like sticking a plaster on an arterial bleed. It’s not about long-term flood planning.”
While a group of teens asked the PM to stop for a selfie, one man shouted: “Do your f***ing job”. And another heckler yelled: “Aren’t you about two weeks too late?”
Last month was the wettest February on record with a succession of storms sparking widespread flooding.
The PM met some of Bewdley’s victims at a pub near the River Severn before a walkabout in the town – which is among England’s worst-hit areas.
Mr Johnson vowed to “get Bewdley done” and said he was “so sorry to hear it” when told of how homes had been swamped by as much as 2ft of water.
The PM said he had spoken to the Environment Agency about “what permanent defences can we put in and what’s the business case”.
And he added: “What we’re doing is doubling the funding for flood defences to £5.2billion and we’re also going to be looking at things we can do upstream.”
But many locals felt it was too little, too late. Primary school teacher Linda Withy, 52, said many of her friends had been affected and she could not understand why the PM did not visit sooner.
She said: “I think he is a little too late, to say the least, there was a lot of dissent in the town about his visit.
“Why did it take him so long? Why did we have to rely on the people of Bewdley pulling together without some leadership from central Government?
“I saw him as he walked past and would have liked to have said a few things – but I didn’t.”
But Paul Smith, whose home was flooded, said: “We are just glad to see him here eventually.” A No10 source said the PM visited at the first opportunity, based on advice from on the ground and to avoid placing any extra burden on first-responders.
In a TV appearance last week, Mr Johnson claimed emergency services told him to stay away. He said: “They said to us, what happens when you go to a flood is you arrive and everybody has to down tools.
“They said, all you’ll do is just distract us and disrupt the business of helping people with the immediate crisis.”
But the next day, Fire and Rescue services in West Yorkshire denied they had advised the PM to stay away.
Mr Johnson’s spokesman said later: “I think what the PM is pointing to is the fact that whenever a Prime Minister or any senior person visits a flood-affected area that obviously has consequences on the response effort and those who need to stop what they’re doing to accommodate that visit.
“That was what the Prime Minister was pointing to yesterday.”