It rained on the parade of Boris Johnson's devising. Instead of being able to bask in the sunshine of Covid-19 vaccination, heavy flooding in the United Kingdom combined with Covid-19 to create the perfect storm. If anyone thinks coincidence, then think again. Both things were foreseeable and could have been mitigated with proper management.
In the article Covid-19 Lesson 3, I showed that not having a health system in place like the United States, or saving the existing one to death as in the United Kingdom resulted in a system collapse. Not being prepared for a pandemic is inexcusable and entirely the fault of politicians. We were warned since 1919 and the Spanish Flu, and all the lessons from that could have been learned. But politicians are so busy lining their own pockets, there is no time for history lessons.
The result of this stubborn refusal to prepare for the foreseeable is always the same. Take an example from snow; one inch of snow, and the capital London collapses sometimes for days. Every year, every time there is a smidgen of snow. I don't think stupid is the right term for politicians, moronic is more apt.
Flooding does the same as snow does, it comes every year, sometimes several times a year. Every time, politicians promise to build better, stronger, more manageable flood systems. They even go so far to name sums of money. But as soon as the water has gone, so has the money. It is spent on much more important things called vanity projects.
One such total waste of billions of pounds was a vanity project called Olympic Games 2012. Completely surplus and now underused venues had to be built at enormous cost. The building quality was typically British; it was so lousy that the Stadium had leaky roofs by 2014. The Olympic Stadium in Munich was built in 1972 and is still going strong.
After throwing out billions on sports venues we could live without, we then had to keep them going. Millions of pounds go every year into running the Velodrome, the Aquatics Center, London Stadium, the Copper Box and other even more obscure venues. And while the Olympic Games went on, big business profited from venue access and small businesses on the access routes were going bankrupt because they had to close.
While these billions were wasted on self adulation, flooding defense went unheeded and unfunded. If all that wasted money had been spent in the flooding sector, most flooding news would be news from yesteryear. But as fat cat politicians don't have houses in the flooded areas, who cares? If Boris the Pooh had a house in Doncaster, flood defenses would have been built the day he became Prime Minister.
A perfect storm? Yes, but a perfect storm for politicians. It finally shows people how worthless they are. They are unable to deal with a pandemic; worse, they are unable to deal with yearly occurrences. Why do we have them? Is there a reason why they get paid more than dole money for doing nothing? It is time to come up with a plan B where we can forget we ever heard the word politicians.
Further reading
Covid-19 Lesson 2
Covid-19 Lesson 1
How Economy Works
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