EU Referendum


Flooding: another bit of the jigsaw


21/02/2014



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Slowly, assiduously, Booker and I have been putting together the jigsaw pieces that made the Somerset floods inevitable – a man-made disaster of monumental proportions.

And while the Met Office is talking up the rainfall, the Mail today carries on its front page the story that the Met Office's confidential three-month forecast for the winter, issued to the likes of the Environment Agency, predicted "drier than normal" conditions, especially in the West Country.

With all the other elements we have been able to assemble, we're now confident of being able to put together the disaster sequence, demonstrating with the utmost clarity, the six steps to disaster, a combination of deliberate actions and negligence by public authorities. With luck, we'll be able to set out the story for Sunday.