The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

One of Us

The Government is investing spectacularly more in flood defences, according to the Secretary of State for Talking about the Environment, which means that water bills will have to rise to protect the profits of water companies, according to the Head of the Environment Agency. Of course, there is no disagreement here.

Baroness Young noted that infrastructure would have to be protected, and that "utilities will have to pay for this protection and undoubtedly they will have to pass that on to their customers" without unduly discomfiting their shareholders, their CEOs or their directors. She also "insisted that the Government, local authorities and other public bodies were also responsible for improving the country's flood protection and had to address several problems", and finally dredged up the undeniably plausible conclusion that "all public services need to look at climate change proofing."

Hilary Benn, speaking on Radio 4, utilised a cunning formulation of the Listen with Mother first person plural to bury the bad news about distribution of responsibilities. The Listen with Mother first person plural is notable for looking and sounding exactly like the normal first person plural while actually meaning the second person, singular or plural as necessary.

Benn first softened up the audience with the adult version: "We are going to have to adapt to a different world. There is no doubt about that at all," he said. Climate change affects everyone, though with minor differences depending on where you sit. Some will have to adapt to a world of flooded homes and occasional drowned corpses, while others will have to worry about where to invest their protection money. "That is why we need to invest more in flood defences, which is what we are doing," Benn continued. We in this sentence, of course, means the Government, Us as opposed to You, the great unwashed though occasionally flood-damaged.

"That is why," concluded Benn, shifting quietly into Listen with Mother mode, "we need to look at how we can adapt our homes if we live in areas where there is a risk of flooding." We must pull our squelchy little socks up if we want to be like Daddy.

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