Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Comments
'When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus' - Turkish proverb.
Nobody has ever traced the one quote back closer to China than Sir Austen Chamberlain MP, who wrote that he had heard it from a diplomat who'd been stationed there. (It was subsequently referred to by the British ambassador to China from 1936 to 1937 but he said that he had heard it in England in 1936 before he went to take up his post in China, from a friend who may well have heard of Chamberlain's comment.)
Similarly I can't trace this one closer to Turkey than a ratepayers' group on the Cassowary coast of Australia.
But it's a good line and I will remember it in case Nigel Farage or Richard Burgon ever becomes PM.
But of course, your blog, your rules etc.
In the case of the first comment above I was very surprised to notice how long it had been waiting as I would have sworn I'd looked at the comments awaiting moderation at least once since it had been posted and not seen it. That may have been a mistake of some kind on my part or there may have been a delay in Blogger letting it past the SPAM filters.
If I am going to reply to a comment I generally do so immediately because otherwise, especially if one is very busy as I usually am, not doing it at once is a recipe for never getting round to it.
I have posted another comment on this thread, that you may have also missed, or perhaps decided not to publish.
I'm of course piggy-backing in unrelated posts (this thread has absolutely nothing to do with the current travails of our PM), and I'm sure that doesn't assist readability.
But of course, until you pass any comment AT ALL on those problems, this is all I can try.
I did take a bit longer to think about this response!
I have actually commented on one of the current issues facing the PM which in more normal circumstances would be seen as quite difficult and would be attracting a lot more attention, and which I also felt qualified to write about, e.g. the issue of Anti-Muslim prejudice raised by Nusrat Ghani and what the party is doing about this issue.
Of course in the present situation what would usually be considered major issues are hardly getting any attention - let's face it, the probability of an imminent actual war between countries with two of the three largest armies in Europe hasn't quite disappeared from the headlines but is getting a lot less attention than you would expect.
In respect of the previous post which has not been published, I was not inclined to let that one through because I felt some of the language was close to if not over the line between constructive criticism, which I will often publish even if I disagree with it, and being insulting towards the person you had concerns about, which I usually won't.
It is no secret that I publicly backed another candidate during the Conservative leadership election so I could hardly object to you writing that the present PM was not my first choice.
If you want to resubmit your comment using a form of words along those lines in respect of the leadership election and similarly toning down some of the other language slightly I will probably let it through. If you prefer to stick to your original language and say, "No, publish in these words or not at all," that is your choice.
But given the latest intervention by the Met, God only knows when we'll get the complete version of that.
So I may well decide to put something up in the near future.