Floating Voters

Despite the Government's increased spending on flood defences, marred only by the minor discrepancy that was the real-world decrease in spending on flood defences, the Somerset Levels have been so careless as to get themselves rained on again. A month after the original flooding, seventeen thousand acres of land are still underwater; the Government is presumably waiting for market forces to step in and start fracking, but in the meantime the residents are suffering some small inconvenience. One of the local MPs, a Conservative, has laid into the Environment Agency while decorously omitting to mention the Whitehall faith community which has been slashing the agency's funds. The Deputy Conservative Jeremy Browne proclaimed that people have been failing to get to work or get their children to school; doubtless Browne will be consulting the Department of Workfare and Privation to help arrange suitable penalties. The disposition of the region's badgers remains a sinister mystery.