And I am delighted to tell you that his first deep incision was on the living carcass of 'little Georgie Moonbat' who, in The Graun, accuses the farmers (in league with the government, of course) of being responsible for the flooding in and around Burrowbridge on the Somerset Levels.
According to 'little Georgie', the farmers with the help of the government, changed the rules so that growing maize was given greater freedom from regulations which resulted in increased ploughing and sowing on the hills which can be seen in the background. Actually, I looked and most of them seem to be wooded! Anyway, 'little Georgie' will have it that all the water "flashes off" down the hills and straight into the "lake".
Picking up his scalpel, Dr. North, makes his first incision!
Would that Mr Monbiot knew it, this area did not get the bulk of its water from distant hills - not directly at any rate. It is designed to be flooded deliberately, from a specially constructed inlet connected to the River Sowy. This is part of a Defra-funded £8 million scheme which is designed to turn the Moor back into wetland. [My emphasis]
The photo is not recent, it was actually taken during the winter of 2009/10 because that was the first deliberate flooding created by the authorities - under a Labour government! Dr. North asks, not without reason:
With £8 million spent on the scheme, where are the cuts about which there has been so much lamenting? This is a joint scheme between the Environment Agency, the Somerset IDB consortium and Natural England, which owns the land, together with the RSPB. There was money for designer floods, it seems, but not for dredging the rivers. [My emphasis]
I admit that Dr. North is not an easy man to read, he takes no prisoners and is possessed of a grumpiness which I envy - but then, he is a 'Yorkie' and we all know how grumpy they can be - just listen to Geoffrey Boycott! Even so, his evisceration of the increasingly silly, 'little Georgie Moonbat' is a sheer delight to sadists everywhere!
Oh, and by the way, if any of you lot admit to sending contributions to the Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds, a ghastly dictatorial organisation staffed (or do I mean 'stuffed'?) entirely by officious prats, you will be drowned forthwith in the flood waters of Somerset!
