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Government pledges funds to support flood affected

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14th Feb 2014
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Wherever you are in the UK, there’s no avoiding the bad weather; from flooding in Farringdon to snow in Scotland.

Here at AccountingWEB headquarters in Bristol, we’ve been lucky in avoiding the majority of the floods sweeping the South West. But members across the country and further afield have been reporting how the weather’s been affecting them, including no train service, flooding and power cuts.

Members reported waterlogging in Dorset, snow in South Linconshire and train cancellations in Plymouth.

With the bad weather set to continue into the weekend, HMRC and the government have come up with a raft of measures for those affected by the bad weather, including:

In addition, major banks have pledged £750m for customers financially affected by the floods and bad weather. 

These include RBS's £250m interest free loan fund for affected businesses, and an offer of repayment holidays for mortgage customers. 

Lloyds and Barclays also announced financial packages of £250m each and HSBC, Santander and Nationwide have launched support programmes for their affected business and individual customers. 

And for areas with affected rail transport, mainly in the South West, the Department for Transport has pledged £31m to fund rail resilience projects. 

Philip Fisher sparked an aid debate in a recent blog, after he wrote that the flooding may make people more mindful of those suffering from extreme weather disasters overseas, something which many may normally feel 'removed' from.

"As we are constantly being reminded at present, floods and gales are more than capable of causing their own devastation in Britain from time to time. Once again, this is usually a long way from where we live and involves nobody that we know," he wrote.

Fisher added that the national press suggesting that financial aid to third world countries should be revoked to help those suffering from flooding here is "tasteless": 

He suggested instead: "A far more helpful and practical suggestion came via a tweet to the BBC website. This suggested that perhaps the money that had been earmarked for HS2 could more usefully being spent to alleviate the rail problems that the railways will face over the next couple of years sorting out the aftermath of the floods?"

Have you been affected by the recent spate of bad weather and flooding? Has it caused you to have to work from home or lose power in your area?

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Replies (19)

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By bernard michael
14th Feb 2014 10:49

The government, including HMRC, announced a raft of financial measures to help those affected by the recent spate of bad weather.

Very appropriate

 

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Replying to Portia Nina Levin:
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By Manwithnoname
14th Feb 2014 11:25

Darn

bernard michael wrote:

The government, including HMRC, announced a raft of financial measures to help those affected by the recent spate of bad weather.

Very appropriate

 

 

Beat me to it...

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By Rachael White
14th Feb 2014 11:35

Further puns

A raft of measures to keep businesses afloat may have been more appropriate.

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By justsotax
14th Feb 2014 12:11

watch the

dodgy insurance claims flood in...!

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By Michael C Feltham
14th Feb 2014 12:28

How Deep?

One waits with bated breath to view the actual terms and conditions........

"However, if the flood which inundated your home reached less than 1 metre, and/or the flood waters drained away within less than seven days from first inundation and your birthday was after January 1st 1934 and you are in receipt of pension credit, disability living allowance and/or..................."

You get the picture!

 

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By evely
14th Feb 2014 14:29

To claim evidence.....

To claim evidence will be needed, such as a photograph of a government Minster or recognisable politician of a known height in your property showing the depth of the flooding. Extra credit will be given if the politician is floating face down.

A package of information will be sent to your address, if it can not be signed for it may be left, however it will not be in waterproof packaging, if it is lost or damaged it can not be replaced.

On-line applications can be attempted, for security reasons it will need to be from the flooded premises so the IP address matches. If it is possible to do this then the property was not damage sufficiently for you to claim.          

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By johnjenkins
14th Feb 2014 15:00

You gonna

kill me for this.

What about the people who have been affected by Government banks etc., both home and Euroland, bad management of our economy. You didn't see Cameron & Co pontificating then.

Yes of course these people who have nearly lost their homes need help and should get it. Hotel bills, cleanup (when we get a bit of respite) etc. etc.

Time and time again. Yorkshire water board, NHS - people dying needlessly, social services - kids being murdered etc. etc.

There is a cult in high places of can't be bothered - not my problem etc.

This catastrophe should not have happened to the extent it has. Money spent in wrong places again and again and again.

Yes I did get a valentine card.

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Replying to AndrewV12:
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By Michael C Feltham
14th Feb 2014 16:56

Amateur Night in Britain:

johnjenkins wrote:

kill me for this.

Why?

What you wrote is correct and IMHO nowhere near scathingly critical enough!

Let's face it, if government and their pseudo scientific experts actually believe what they keep banging on about, Climate Change, and:

If they had taken suitable early action, in boosting river flood defences, and:

If government at all levels (i.e. Central, County, Local) had have robustly insisted on intelligent planning and building regulations, and:

If adequate storm drains had been built to cope with the massive exponential population increases, and:

If Thatcher had not have driven thru her beloved privatisation programme without any cogent agency possessing teeth and robust statutory powers to demand minimum standards of acceptable behaviour and corporate integrity:

Then ergo, much of this disaster would never have happened.

Add to the previous cocktail of chicanery, duplicity and calumny, the sheer spavined management ability of both government ministers and senior civil servants, who despite record tax revenue receipts and government spending, clearly, couldn't run a hotdog stand and turn a profit!

Sobering to realise government spending expressed as a percentage of GDP is now higher than it was in 1950 to 1956, when Britain was still meeting the enormous post-war costs, funding the development of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons programmes, from scratch, funding the Korean War costs and what's more, building the first nuclear power stations using the original Magnox reactors.

Thus this brooks the question, where in hell is all our money going?

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_20th_century_chart.html

(n.b. The above is a very useful free site I have used for years when needing to cull information and data on GDP, government spend etc)

 

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By the_Poacher
16th Feb 2014 15:38

Amazing
what this government will do when bad weather impacts on constituencies in the south of the country

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By ShirleyM
16th Feb 2014 16:49

Ahhhh ... but the north ..

... will get fracking.   :(

I'll bet the northerners won't benefit from it, though. We'll just get the muck, without the brass.

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Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
16th Feb 2014 23:29

It's grim up North all right.
There was [***] help last year when the north East got hit last. People in Newburn etc are still not back In there homes yet. All the problems were down to lack of maintenance. After the floods it was found that all the drains were filled with grass cuttings and other crap as councils had stopped collecting grass to save money. It's a bit like gritting roads in winter they gamble on not having bad weather to save money and get caught out if we do. I believe the problems in Somerset are down to the lack of dredging on the river to save cash. I wonder how much it costs to dredge a river against the cost of repairing all the homes damaged in the floods. It's amazing how when the Thames is potentially going to flood that money is no object to sort it out pity the same did not happen when the Tyne did.

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Replying to Matrix:
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By evely
17th Feb 2014 17:55

A grim time and the third world

Glennzy wrote:
I believe the problems in Somerset are down to the lack of dredging on the river to save cash. I wonder how much it costs to dredge a river against the cost of repairing all the homes damaged in the floods. It's amazing how when the Thames is potentially going to flood that money is no object to sort it out pity the same did not happen when the Tyne did.

The comment about dredging the river comes up a lot however much of the Somerset levels is man made and man maintained.

In some areas the rivers are higher than the fields so the water has to be pumped off the fields into the rivers all year. Dredging the rivers might increase their capacity slightly but with the volume of rain over the last few weeks it would not have made a difference. There pumps would not have been designed for that volume of water.

The plan for putting in drainage channels for the Thames was first planned in 2003 after the flooding that took place, if I recall a very modest £200m (approx) considering the damage that would be caused. But flooding is not something that happens often in the UK, so no rush then.

 

Broken Third World Britain

I suggest you actually visit the third world first before down grading the UK.

We had been wandering around Petra Jordan over Christmas a few years ago. We met a young girl late teens selling a few trinkets who had learned English by talking to tourists so a clever person. As it was so quiet she offered to guide us down a different route and pointed out some of the feature we might have otherwise missed. It got very late so we left the Petra a different way ending up in her village in her family house.      

They originally had lived in the caves in Petra but had been tidied up and put into 'modern' concrete block house, with minimum hygiene and cooking facilities. We sat on a very thin mattress on the floor which served as a bed. What struck me was the fire, it was a wheel from a truck with a few embers putting out a little heat. The children had no obvious toys and the possessions in the room were minimal.

When it came to paying for her services she said ' what ever you feel it is worth', we did not wish to under pay, nor grossly over pay, my inexpensive digital camera I had been using that day I expect was worth more than she made all year.

Petra is high up in the mountains and on the last day it snowed so some roads got closed by the police, the taxi half slide down the roads to the desert

So please before using the term 'third world' be thankful for what we have in the UK it is far more than most people have, we do have health care, insurance, armed forces and police that will help in a crisis, and roads that do get gritted.   

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Replying to ireallyshouldknowthisbut:
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By Michael C Feltham
18th Feb 2014 13:17

Context Is All!

evely wrote:

Broken Third World Britain

Adam Smith, the economist and Philosopher wrote (I paraphrase):

"Poverty must always be a comparison between the poor and the rich at that time!"

Child poverty is increasing, exponentially in both the UK and USA:

Food Banks are increasingly in demand:

Britain's infrastructure decays faster than it can be repaired: let alone improved!

The UK lacks total Competitive Advantage.

Diseases such as TB are advancing so rapidly in the UK, antibiotics can no longer cope!

As sewerage treatment facilities decay, then we can sadly expect to experience increasing dangerous outbreaks of Cholera, Dysentery, Weil's Disease, Typhoid, and etc.

Quote:
we do have health care, insurance, armed forces and police that will help in a crisis, and roads that do get gritted. 

Health Care: go to France and try theirs!

Roads: same comment!

Armed Forces: reducing rapidly and understaffed, underfunded etc:

Police: try calling them in an emergency!

Roads, that get gritted: apologies for roads where payouts for damage caused by massive potholes exceed maintenance cost!

Next?

 

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By ShirleyM
17th Feb 2014 08:07

Apparently ....

All the labour councils have had their budgets cut by millions. Ok, I know all councils have, but the cuts to Labour councils are larger, and  so severe that even essential services are being cut. 

I guess that will make the councils desperate enough to take the bribe to allow fracking.

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By bernard michael
17th Feb 2014 09:14

It's the householder & his

It's the householder & his insurance company who pay the bill not the Govt/local authorities. Ultimately we will all carry extra insurance premiums to offset this

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Replying to atleastisoundknowledgable...:
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By Michael C Feltham
17th Feb 2014 16:14

If you Actually Can!

bernard michael wrote:

It's the householder & his insurance company who pay the bill not the Govt/local authorities. Ultimately we will all carry extra insurance premiums to offset this

Nice idea.

Sadly, once an area has flooded, the venal insurance underwriters tend to refuse cover for flood damage......

A client of mine, for example, is totally unable to insure flood risk: as his house suffered flooding, just once, in 1953!

However, this is so typical of broken Third World Britain, now.

We pay ludicrous local taxes and national taxes and even though our money has been forcibly extracted, on a no choice basis, then the authority responsible whines "Lack of resources!", when we need something done!

In which case our rates and taxes ought to be reduced, rather than increased, since we are expected to pay hard cash for non-extant services.

See my earlier response above on government spending.

 

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By johnjenkins
18th Feb 2014 09:41

@evely

It is not difficult for this country to become a third world entity. Yes, of course, we are far better off than most. However once the gap between the very rich and very poor widens and the middle classes are eroded. then watch out. I feel sorry for my grandchildren cos if something isn't done then they will inherit a crap country.

The other thing some forget is that WE have paid (in blood and cash) for our country to have all these normal (to some luxuries) life enhancing goodies, they don't just come out of thin air.

Back to the plot. We have people in prison all over the country, we have our armed forces, yet we seem unable to cope. It is always the same. Let's hope nothing happens and by the time it does it's too late. Prevention has always been better than cure. We can't even send people to prison for life (meaning life). Someone needs to get a grip (you listening DC).

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By Michael C Feltham
18th Feb 2014 13:07

Further To.........

Further to my comments on UK government, et al,...............

 

New Discovery From CERN!

New Discovery: The Heaviest Element Discovered!

Newsflash via Reuters++++++++++++ 

Scientists at CERN in Geneva have announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element is Governmentium (Gv). It has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called moroniuons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lefton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons or protons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more moroniuons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moroniuon promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever moroniuons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalyzed with moninioum, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many moroniuons. All of the moninoium is consumed in the exchange, and no other by-products are produced.

Further news of radioactive decay of Governmentium with possible explosive effects is expected momentarily. Thus enabling illegal invasion of sovereign states a snap!

Ends++++++++++++ 

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