The Curmudgeon

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

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Dredging Up

Here is how the hallowed private sector is contributing towards making Britain safe from floods: it isn't much. As with other instances of the deadly public spending sin, the Government has imposed massive savings on flood defences without troubling to consider what real-world efficiencies might result. Market forces would sort it all out; and even if there were problems, the deserving middle classes could simply do what Britain's Head Boy would have done, and move into whatever spare homes they had put by for a rainy day. In fact, the private sector's contribution to flood defences has been much the same as its contribution to the Great Osbornomic Recovery. Under the usual rubric of "partnership", the Government has raised £148 million in funding and has vague hopes of spending about £2,300 million between 2011 and 2015. The private sector will contribute about £37 million of this; the rest will be raised by yet further mugging of local authorities. Meanwhile, Britain's Head Boy has called another prefects' meeting in the Cobra room, presumably in order to thrash out how much G4S should get in return for incentivising workfarers to hand-dredge the rivers of Somerset.

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