From John Redwood’s blog: the reason for flooding.

This is a direct quotation from John Redwood’s blog:

“I have received some answers to Parliamentary Questions concerning floods and the Environment Agency’s work and response.

The Agency is responsible for 22,600 miles of main river. In the year 2014/15 they dredged just 120 miles of this estate, or 0.5% of the rivers.

They spent a combined total of £45 million on cleaning, weeding and dredging rivers and river banks, out of their total budget of over £1 billion. That is under 5% of the budget.

The Environment Agency is responsible for 347 fixed pumping stations, including the Foss one in York which was deemed to be overwhelmed and led to the decision to flood parts of the city. The Agency did not put in additional mobile pumps, on the grounds that they judged there was too much water to shift using such devices.

The Agency itself has 245 mobile pumps. Along with other emergency services there were 425 mobile pumps available in December 2015 to deal with floods. 42 of these pumps were sent to the north of England to assist with the additional rainfall and river flows there.

The picture which emerges is of an Agency reluctant to undertake conventional maintenance and cleansing of rivers. There are also questions to be asked about the availability and the use of pumps, and how they co-ordinate with other emergency and public protection services to fly pumps in at short notice to places under stress.”

Why I Why I voted to join the Common Market in 1975.

In 1975, I was thirty years old. I was mad keen to join the Common Market.
France!
In those far off days, France was sexy. Brigitte Bardot sunbathed topless – topless! – in the south of France. People I knew crept into cinemas to see French films. How embarrassed they were very when I told them I had seen them there.
Then there was the wine. Red wine! Almost free! Wine was something which we drank at Christmas. But it was always French Bordeaux and my father would never have any other country’s wine in the house. It was a ritual going to the wine specialist shop every year and coming back with a bottle of red wine. Fancy if it cost next to nothing!
That was certainly enough to make me very enthusiastic. Britain at the time was in the grip of the Unions. We were huddled round a small coal fire in the living room often in the dark because of the power cuts. Many people were working a four day week. At church – free and traditional – the Head Server told me that Britain was bankrupt and that we had to go to something called the IMF for funds. I did not believe him: we had just won the war and we were an Imperial Power!
In France, though, everything was fine – lots of money, lost of work and prosperity. Germany, the other member of the Common Market, (Italy was still a joke but I had enjoyed going round the sights as a student) was still enjoying the Economic Miracle. If only we could live like that!
So I went round telling everyone who would listen (not many people) that our future lay in the Common Market. Today Leon Brittan makes out that everyone knew that the Common Market was the same thing as the European Union. But I didn’t. And I didn’t care much either.
We won the referendum. Today Brigitte Bardot looks quaint and the cheap wine has arrived from all over the world. Different times.

We need to be what we are: world traders.

We need to leave the EU now.

This blog will give helpful hints to those of us who are trying to publicise the idea of leaving and, much more important, what happens after we leave.

Trammelled by a Commission which is secret, unelected and composed of second raters, our country is being ruled  from Brussels.

We need to leave and get out to be what we are: world traders.

Easier said than done. We have a clever plan though…

And that is what this blog is all about.