Floods expose limits of government power

Wurzels are better than weasel words.

Time to let a bit of daylight in on the magic of Westminster politics.

Every Wednesday after Prime Minister’s Questions there is a “huddle” in the press gallery at which Downing Street apparatchiks attempt to explain to the media what the PM really meant by the words everyone just heard him say in the chamber.

It’s surprising how often the dozens of journalists whose job it is to trade in words have to be told that they’ve managed to fundamentally misunderstand what the PM said just a few minutes previously.

Prime Minister’s spokespersons fall into two broad categories attractive women of foreign extraction and exasperated men.

The women don’t get exasperated because their exoticism tends to bedazzle a press corps largely consisting of men who spent their teenage years at schools secluded from women with posters of Margaret Thatcher and Brigitte Bardot on their walls.

Spokesmen, on the other hand, often attended the same sort of establishment, so are perceived as fair game for the political equivalent of a wedgie.

Last week, the incumbent exasperated man faced a full-on debagging as his boss’s announcements on measures to cope with the floods unravelled in double quick time.

For the second week in succession the PM tried to wrest the initiative at PMQs by dropping in a slate of new policies.

The main problem politicians have had with the floods that have devastated swathes of the nation is that their impotence is exposed. They cannot implement the one policy that would make a difference outlawing rain.

But David Cameron attempted to improve things for those affected with some eye-catching initiatives such as £5,000 grants to help homeowners flood-proof their houses and a big bucket of cash to put right the West Country train tracks trashed by the tempest.

Cynics who suggest there’s an urgency about the effort to reopen the railways because MPs want to be able to visit their Cornish holiday homes in the Easter holidays are wrong on two counts.

Firstly, Politicians rarely travel by train. The exception was former Transport Secretary Lord Adonis who spent his summer holidays when he was in office traversing the country by rail to understand the problems on the network. Everything that’s wrong with British politics can be summed up by the fact such a man has to be ennobled because he can’t get elected.

Secondly, the money wasn’t new. Unfortunately for the PM’s spokesman, a reporter from some West Country newspaper was in the huddle who well remembered the exact same sum being promised for railways in his patch last year. It’s the exact same money.

The reporter’s scoop was sadly superseded by the far more yokel-exciting news that scrumpy-fuelled 70s novelty band The Wurzels are to play a benefit concert for floods victims.

From there the exasperation grew as Number 10 appeared to admit the Treasury hadn’t actually added up how much the package of measures would cost. Hardly prudent stewardship of the nation’s finances.

And the spokesman conceded that folk in swanky riverside homes, such as magician Paul Daniels whose mansion on the the Thames is currently under water, would be eligible for the £5,000 grant to flood proof their houses and they’d get to keep the added value when they came to sell.

Taxpayers who live in cities, up hills, essentially all the places that don’t flood, will pick up the tab.

As the tiny TV conjuror himself might say will they like that? Not a lot.

The PM claimed “money is no object” in dealing with the floods, but the small print suggest that’s not entirely true. Even if it were, such disasters show up the limits to Government power.

You can’t pay the clouds to go away.