I know what it is like to have a party leader visit your house in a flood. Six years ago this month, I had spent a tidy sum doing up my dad’s modest house in Wraysbury, Berkshire, after he died, and I was about to sell it.
Then I switched on the TV one morning and was horrified to see Wraysbury at the centre of a national emergency – it had been flooded by the Thames.
Aside from panicking over whether the house – and the cash I had sunk into it – was about to be swept away downstream, even more astonishing was the sight of a man in wellingtons standing at the end of my dad’s sodden garden.
It was Labour leader Ed Miliband who had turned up to offer sympathy to the locals and he was being interviewed live on television.
I just don’t understand why the Prime Minister has not left Chevening – the grace and favour residence in Kent where he is ensconced with partner Carrie Symonds while Chequers is being renovated – to visit the flood zones, writes Simon Walters
Sadly, I wasn’t there to brew Ed a mug of tea. Did Miliband’s visit to Wraysbury make a difference to the residents? I doubt it.
Most had probably never heard of him. Were they grateful he made the effort to turn up? In the main, yes – though one redoubtable lady told him to get out of the way.
If Wraysbury were under water now, would they appreciate a similar visit by Boris Johnson? Yes, most of them.
First, unlike Miliband in those days, he is Prime Minister and can do something about it. If he can’t, what is the point in being in Downing Street?
Second, Boris would cheer them up. He’d either fall over and get soaked or insist on paddling an elderly lady and her poodle to safety at the village hall in a canoe. (Boris the historian could look in on the Wraysbury archives room, set up there by my dad Arthur, while he’s about it – the village is in the Domesday Book.)
I just don’t understand why the Prime Minister has not left Chevening – the grace and favour residence in Kent where he is ensconced with partner Carrie Symonds while Chequers is being renovated – to visit the flood zones.
Jeremy Corbyn showed the way on Thursday by going to the swamp that used to be Pontypridd in the devastated Welsh valleys (pictured visiting one of the flooded homes)
Doubtless, he is on the phone to officials, ministers and world leaders while being waited on hand-and-foot at Chevening. But it is not as if the couple need a luxury break. They’ve barely been back from their free £15,000 holiday in sunny Mustique long enough to lose their tans.
Johnson likes to call Jeremy Corbyn ‘old mugwump’. Well ‘old mugwump’ showed the way on Thursday by going to the swamp that used to be Pontypridd in the devastated Welsh valleys.
It’s true Corbyn does not have a Government to run. But you can’t accusing him of grubbing for votes – he’s already said he is resigning as Labour leader.
The buck doesn’t stop with Jezza. It stops with Bozza.
You can’t accusing Corbyn (pictured with a man whose home had flooded ) of grubbing for votes – he’s already said he is resigning as Labour leader. The buck doesn’t stop with Jezza. It stops with Bozza
Never mind the Red Wall, Boris. What about the Wall of Water that stretches from Yorkshire to South Wales? The excuses trotted out by non-entity ministers for Johnson’s refusal to visit the floods are becoming increasingly desperate. One of them said that if the PM turned up it would be a ‘jamboree’.
That is a bit rich: Boris’s entire election campaign was a jamboree of photo calls from one end of the UK to the other. There was hardly a baby in the land he didn’t kiss.
BUOYED BY THE PRINCE OF (WET) WALES
Prince Charles did his best to raise spirits in one flood-hit town in South Wales yesterday – if only temporarily.
His cheering visit to Pontypridd highlighted the absence of Boris Johnson from devastated communities this week.
Amid criticism over his decision to stay put at the Government’s Chevening House country retreat in Kent, the Prime Minister was nevertheless said to be in ‘constant touch’ with recovery efforts.
Prince Charles visited Pontypridd which was affected by recent floods on Thursday
Floods minister Rebecca Pow defended Mr Johnson, who has refused to bow to public pressure to visit flood zones, insisting officials were ‘feeding into him absolutely constantly’.
The Prime Minister is sticking to his post-election policy of leaving ministers to be in charge of their departments.
It comes as torrential rainfall threatens a third consecutive weekend of damaging floods, with Northern England set to receive another drenching.
True, he got a flea in his ear in November when he belatedly visited Stainforth, South Yorkshire, almost a week after it was deluged and residents were forced to flee.
Locals complained Tory promises of cash aid had come to nothing and one yelled: ‘You took your time, Boris!’
Surely, he can’t be so thin-skinned as to be worried about a repeat of that?
We are constantly told that Boris is more of a President than a Prime Minister. He doesn’t read every policy like Margaret Thatcher who kept a copy of the 1944 Education Act in her handbag.
He’s not a Maggie, he’s a Churchill, they say – he can lead and inspire in times of crisis. Like Brexit. Or the floods that currently stretch from Yorkshire to South Wales and are drenching this green and pleasant land more and more often.
Something about Johnson enables him to connect with ordinary voters. They may not understand his highfalutin classical references – but they do feel he understands them; that he listens.
That’s why he won the election by a landslide. Like Churchill, he cheers people up in times of need and gives them hope. If your kitchen is under 6ft of sewage-filled water, you need both.
It’s no use Downing Street saying these things don’t matter. Tell that to Theresa May who has admitted that one of her biggest regrets was her failure to talk to victims of the Grenfell fire more quickly and sympathetically.
Or to David Cameron who faced a vicious backlash when he went ahead with a trip to Rwanda in 2007 despite severe flooding in his own constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire.
Last night a Downing Street source said: ‘The Prime Minister is not interested in governing by public relations stunts like Tony Blair. Nor will he be calling Cobra meetings every five minutes.
‘He has full confidence in Cabinet ministers to carry out their responsibilities. Environment Secretary George Eustice has been to many of the flooded areas and is doing an excellent job.’
A woman is seen being lifted to safety by rescue workers as floodwater surrounds the village of Whitchurch in Herefordshire, after the River Wye burst its banks during of Storm Dennis
Yet Johnson’s stance is the latest sign of a creeping arrogance in No 10. Cemented in power by a concrete Commons majority, there is already talk of tax rises on pensions, petrol and houses, and of scrapping the BBC – none of which were mentioned in the Conservative manifesto. Officials also complain of bullying in No 10 and the Home Office. But perhaps there is another, more worrying, explanation.
It is clear that climate experts believe there will be more floods in Britain – and indeed the rest of the world. Is Boris concerned that if he goes out on this occasion, he will have to visit victims every time they are hit by floods in future?
Not long ago Johnson revelled in mocking eco-warriors and their ‘nonsense’. He fancifully accused them of giving the impression that car emissions meant ‘the outskirts of Taunton were about to turn into the Brahmaputra’ – the Bangladesh delta where monsoons regularly claim the lives of thousands.
It is not a gag he would risk now. As the UK prepares to host COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, we can expect many more eco-friendly measures from the Government, such as yesterday’s announcement that buying coal and wet wood logs is to be banned to curb pollution.
The truth is that if Boris put his galoshes on and went to Pontypridd and the Pennines, he may be forced to wear them every time it rains. And that would interrupt his winter break in the Caribbean.