Sign petition.

On the Daily Mail online there is a petition
to get the government make funds used for other countries diverted
the the UK.

 

No way! That would be too much of a cop out for the government. Extreme weather events are becoming a fact of life all over the world, not just here.
It's their job to plan for them, not punish those who cannot help themselves.

 

Since when was Somerset a foreign country!! The government should get their act together. although I note that there is more activity now that the flooding has reached the Thames Valley.
Nigel

 

They wont do it anyway.
Foreign aid budgets are untouchable, for some reason.
Anyway, all the time we keep throwing money at the so called third world we cant be that hard up.
But then again, our roads are definitely "third world".

 

you havnt been to Cairo then , makes ours look like a runway

 

I have no real problem with the concept of foreign aid. What I have a problem with is that it goes to countries that don't need it while our government lets people here suffer while pleading poverty.

If the petition said "divert foreign aid meant for India to UK", and it wasn't been run by one of the dubious tabloids, I'd sign it. India has a thriving space program, an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons poised ready to wipe out Pakistan, and a massive chunk of our business. They can't possibly be skint. Ok, the ordinary people are skint, but that's only because their government considers them to be subhuman (they still have the caste system - in the 21st century), so our money isn't going to change that.

What I would hate to see happen though is if we stopped helping where our help IS genuinely needed, just because some rather narrow minded faction has managed to take one tiny subset of the bigger picture and spin it to look like we are single-handedly giving all our money away to foreign governments that don't need or deserve it.

 

To be fair, investment in infrastructure has been a failing in this country stretching back to the Thatcher regime. Sadly this government believes that as long as all is well in The City then all is well with the world.

I'm no bleeding heart liberal, but I believe that they are important. Which brings me on to....................

What does offend me is when this money lines the pockets of a very small clique instead of helping those that it was intended to help.

I use the A40 daily and along one section of about a mile everyone is doing the pothole (actually more like sinkholes in places) slalom. Sooner or later there will be a big accident. The A40 is a major road.

 

The roads in Somerset are now a joke.

Having to make huge diversions, not because of the floods, but because of the holes caused by the floods.

 

Why would I want to go to Cairo?

I know there are possibly worse places, but they are all "third world".

 

Oh, they want road tax off me in 2 weeks

 

They've got round that as well Zigs, it's called a road licence now!

 

Usually they tell us the roads break up because of the frost, not seen much of that this year.

Also if it is weather related, why is it some sections of road are unaffected while others are like a war zone.
Its just lack of proper maintenance, the weather has no real bearing, unless we are talking about coastal roads and pounding waves.

 

Do boats need road tax??

 

It's warmer and drier

 

Dont give them ideas

Yeah but apparently the weather must be worse than ours, if their roads are that bad.