oss 100 kroner!
I likhet med deler av Norge har England vært hjemsøkt voldsomme flommer. Og folk i Nord-England er rasende på David Cameron, ikke fordi de tror han er skyld i været, men fordi regjeringas nedskjæringspolitikk har rammet flomberedskapen.
Innbyggerne i nord sier at flommen har gjort regionen til et tredjeverden-land. The Guardian skriver:
- Nine severe flood warnings, 5o flood warnings and 65 flood alerts are still in place across England and Wales, days after Boxing Day downpours began swallowing towns across the north.
- David Cameron was forced to defend the government’s record on flood defences during a visit to York, where he was heckled by passers-by. The prime minister said: “We have to look at what’s happened in terms of the flooding, what flood defences have worked and the places where they haven’t worked well enough, and see if there’s more that we can do.”
- Northern newspapers and politicians accused the government of not doing enough to defend their communities, citing a “north-south divide” in investment in flood defences. Judith Blake, the council leader in Leeds, said: “I think there’s a real anger growing across the north about the fact that the cuts have been made to the flood defences.”
Akkurat som flomkatastrofen under stormen Katrina, som ødela store deler av New Orleans, har også flomkatastrofen i England altså vist seg å være veldig klassebevisst.
Og ikke bare det. Denne flommen var ikke bare mulig å varsle. Den ble varslet, og den var subsidiert, skriver George Monbiot i The Guardian.
These floods were not just predictable; they were predicted. There were clear and specific warnings that the management of land upstream of the towns now featuring in the news would lead to disaster. On 9 December one of my readers told me this. “I live in the middle of Foss drainage board land above York, where flooding would not harm a single property but water is sent down as fast as possible to York.” A few days later another reader wrote to me, warning that “upstream flood banks now protect crops, not the city of York”. On 26 December the Foss exploded into York.
Den britiske regjeringa ønsker å deregulere grøfting og kanalrydding, slik at landeierne lettere kan lede bort vannet fra eiendommene sine. Og dette vannet oversvømmer boligene i blant annet York.
