Flooding in the UK isn't an act of God, it's an act of government | Simon Jenkins

A ?1.2bn supercomputer for the Met Office is no substitute for effective planning and proper wildlife managementHere we go again. It rains in Britain and an emergency is declared. Nearly 600 flood warnings are issued in England on a single day and the environment secretary, George Eustice, declares it impossible to "protect every single household". But he can protect the Met Office. It is to get another ?1.2bn of public money for a "supercomputer", just six years after getting ?97m for a previous one. There seems to be no headline-grabbing project for which this government is short of a billion.Except for coastal surges, floods are about rivers. These have flooded throughout history, and there is no mystery as to why. It is called gravity. Rivers drain catchment areas into flood plains, moving water from uplands to lowlands. Variations in their behaviour are the result of the past planning of those same rivers and flood plains. Whatever may be the role of the climate emergency, blaming it is of no help to victims of today's flooding. Continue reading...