Labour are lying when they say the floods could not have been predicted - they were.

The first major scandal of the Brown government is now starting to take form.

The Labour government have failed to act on long range and short term warnings of the flooding that is taking place. Perhaps they were to caught up in the coronation of Gordon Brown, the cash for honours inquiry, the battle to be deputy prime minister leader to worry about the people of England.

Its seems to be a product of the El Nino phenomena that is occurring this year. ( So says a small article in the Observer ).

We don't seem to hear that on the BBC - perhaps because it would make it clear that the Labour governments were to blame. (We know that the BBC doesn't always behave in an honest way - preferring to leave the audience with the information they see fit to give them rather than the unbalance or even just the truth.)

I guess if you've been a victim of the floods - your internet connection is perhaps also out. but you should be angry, not because of a slow response to come and help after the floods or Hull having its traditional chip on it shoulder about a London Government .

But because when Gordon Brown said an "emergency that no one could have predicted" - it wasn't true. They had been too busy positioning themselves for ministerial limousines, ensuring that money keeps flowing north and west from England, wasting large amounts of the tax payers money by just dumping it in unreformed public services, cutting back the environment agency ( they perhaps thought no one would notice ).

Lets be clear here-

• The Labour government is responsible for flood defences and emergency planning.
• They were warned - clearly that this would happen.
• They responded by cutting back the environment agency and doing nothing about the woeful public flood defences and drainage system.
• Even in the recent past they still have not got their act together. ( After Sheffield and Hull - did they react better this time - only difference I can see is that Gordon Brown got on telly to launch his misdirection by claiming the floods couldn't be foreseen).

Perhaps Labour just doesn't have minister who are capable enough for the jobs they are given. Or perhaps they just don't care. What is clear is that they have failed in their duty and many people have suffered. ( this is perhaps why Gordon Brown was so quick to promise 100% money to compensate local authorities - he knows now about the criticism that's coming ).

No one can turn a drama into a crisis like the Labour government can - remember Foot and Mouth anyone ? The Army had to straighten them out in the end - after the Cosnervative party begged them to be allowed to take over !

[ See also this post - which has some of the sources and blogs where this is traken from. Credit to Ralph at Some Stuff blog - fro bringing some of this together. ]

Update: Just heard Hillary Ben on BBC News 24 c19:42 misleading the public - and the BBC interviewer allowing him to do it ( after all the BBC loves Labour). Benn was asked about the cut in the Environment Agency's budget - Benn responded by answering a different question ( how very NuLabour ) by answering on Capital budget. He knew he was misleading people as he kept mentioning the Capital budget. What kind of a man misleads people at time s like this. Labour - politics is always more important to them than the people or doing their jobs.

Update Mon am: Hillary Benn on R4's today this morning - spouting the same line on Capitl budgets. But this time the interviewer pushed him harder, and won't take the deliberate deception being pushed by Benn. The interviewer quoted from an email sent in from an alleged employee of the environment agency to say that money from the agency had been diverted ( as well as the cuts in its overall budget ) to help pay for the farming payment fiasco that Margarette Becket et all created ( associated with the suicide of a number of farmers ).

The key point here is that a Labour minister - one of the supposed most honest - is delivberately trying to misdirect the British people and preventing interviewers from discovering the truth. As I've said before this is who they really are !