Worst Take of the Week: Storm Dennis Flooded Your Home? Have £500!

Story: Severe flooding caused by Storm Dennis leaves affected residents furious at Boris Johnson’s no-show and Government inaction.

Reasonable Take: Given that extreme weather is becoming more commonplace and destructive, perhaps the UK should think about preventative measures going forward.

Brain rot: Flooding has decimated your uninsurable houses? I won’t bother turning up, but here’s £500 and don’t expect to hear from us again until the next election – Boris Johnson, Prime Minister.

As devastating floods have seen hundreds of families evacuated from their homes across the UK, Boris Johnson has faced widespread condemnation for failing to visit flood-hit areas or call a meeting of the government's emergency COBRA committee to respond to the crisis.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the flooding was in stark contract to that of the Prime Minister, as the Islington MP visited the village of Rhydyfelin in South Wales on Thursday to talk to residents and witness the wreckage dealt by Storm Dennis first hand, declaring that Johnson was showing his “true colours”.

Business minister Nadhim Zahawi said the real reason that the Prime Minister was yet to visit victims of the flooding was not due to a lack of empathy, nor his blatant disregard to his duties as prime minister, nor anything to do with fact he was spending his week cosied from the perils of the storm in a 115-room grace-and-favour mansion in Kent like some fop in a Brontë novel, but because he consciously attempting to save the flood-hit communities from a “media jamboree” and allow the work of the emergency services to continue without disruption.

It’s good to see the “he actually cares too much to show up, he didn’t want to cause a scene” defence not only being utilised as an excuse for estranged dads across the country after failing to attend their kid’s birthday party, but for the literal prime minister of Britain in the midst of a national emergency.

In archetypal Conservative fashion, Zahawi – who also happens to be an oil company director who owns more than £25m worth of private property – announced the party was doing everything they could to help those affected, and that these flood-hit households would be entitled to apply for a £500 grant under measures introduced by the their Government.

Entirety of your home ruined? Tens of thousands of pounds of repairs necessary? No worries, we’ve got your families first four nights at the Travelodge covered!

Notably the PM's crisis-control of the current floods are in distinct disparity to how he treated flood-affected areas in Yorkshire and the East Midlands during last year's general election campaign, when Johnson visited the regions and held urgent COBRA meetings.

It really is demonically evil that these Tory cunts aren’t using the fact that the public gave them a commanding majority in Parliament as a mandate to help them – though it's unsurprising, given that there’s half a decade until the next election.

The way the Prime Minister has treated pre-and-post election flooded areas was depressingly captured in an interview with one ‘staunch supporter’ of Johnson named Vic Haddock, whose house and businesses had been ruined in the flood-hit town of Ironbridge in Shropshire. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Haddock urged the PM to reciprocate the solidarity he’d shown towards him in the general election and help sort out the chaos: “I’ve supported him, come on Boris - come and support me,” adding: “I'll buy you a pint.”

It felt dishearteningly like watching your uncle left bamboozled as to why the “credentials validator” on La Rambla was taking so long to return with his fanny pack, as the nowhere-to-be-seen PM makes the desolate residents feel like they were waiting for Godot to arrive.

“I expect to get my feet wet, but I don't expect this, not when they're protecting the town on the other side. I think there's got to be some sort of duty of care,” Haddock lamented, emphasising that he and many other ordinary working people “can’t get insurance” as they “come up with extortionate rates – £7,000 a year, or something like that”. He also scoffed at the news that the Tory government is willing to offers flood victims up to £500 in relief: "£500? What's that going to do? There's £500 of damage in the freezer and fridge alone."

Cue a barrage of remarks from both sides of the political spectrum; one-half boasting that they were too smart be in his predicament: “You bought a house near a river, serves you right!” and the other gloating: “You voted Tory, serves you right!” Which perfectly exemplifies the unhelpful quandary most people have found themselves in this week: some thought the Tories cared about them, some didn’t, but regardless of everything they're all being indistinguishably shat on from a great height.

With a new UN-backed report suggesting that considerable parts of Britain could be lost to sea within a few decades, the knowledge that we're all doomed to be trapped on this drowning, cut-off, tiny island with nearly all our villages, towns and cities built alongside rivers, I really hope the government in charge of futureproofing us against the woes of the climate change is going to do more than issue a voucher booklet for Wetherspoons and hope it all blows over.

@MULLET_FAN_NEO