I've just found out

this is one of the reasons I hate politicians.

The floods that are happening at the moment are of course bad..even more so when you consider that they could (or should) have been prevented.

Taken from Private eye, which puts it better than I could;

"Down on the Farm.

The scandal of the shambles DEFRA made over failing to pay farmers their EU subisdies rolls inexorably on and we are now beginning to see some of it's nastier repercussions.

Readers (of Private eye) may well recall that one upshot of the greatest single act of maladministration by any government department since foot-and-mouth was that the EU imposed a succession of fines on the British government so far totalling £350 million. Brussels can scarcely have believed its luck at such a windfall. But a furious Gordon Brown told DEFRA there was no way he was going to bail it out for a disaster entirely of its own making. It would have to pay the bill out of its own departmental budget, making enough cuts to cover the deficit.
Being DEFRA it did not, of course, suggest cuts in its own army of penpushers. Instead it looked round the more inoffensive and useful outlying parts of its mighty empire, to see where it could slice off a few million here and a few million there in the hope no one would notice.

One place where its feral gaze alighted was the responsibility of the Envornmental Agency for Britain's flood defences. who would notice a cut of £15m off that budget (apart from all those people whose homes may be flooded as a result?) Anothar target was the British Waterways Board, responsible for our 2400 mile-long canal system, which in recent years has become a reasonable success story, providing recreation for ever more millions of people seeking a peaceful escape from the horrors of Blair's Britain as they drift down the canals in barges or walk their dogs along the towpath.

The BWB was told that, to pay for dEFRA's incompettence over those non-payments to farmers, its spending over the next five years would be cut by £50mill. this hit BWB in the solar plexus, because it alreayd had a very tight budget. It was immediatly obvious that this would mean postponing all sorts of desirable and necessary items in its programme, such as repairing crumbling canalbanks to stop water pouring out over the country side. but as the months went by it became obvious that even worse was to come. the BWB has had to lay off 180 of its staff, most of whom, unlike their masters at DEFRA, were actually doing usefull work.
It has now been reported that the board is having to postpone its most ambitious current project, the reconstruction of the Cotswold Canals joining the Thames in the east of England wuth the Severn in the west. This is a particularly painful blow, since the BWB had already raised £18m in funding from other bodies, including £11.9m pledged by the National Lottery fund which it may now lose thanks to the project being put on ice.
Worst of all there is now talk that DEFRA plans to sell off the entire canal system to raise a further £1BN. Canal users view this as a total disaster, since it would almost certainly be sold off piecemeal to assorted developers, few of whom would have much interest in retaining a working canalsystem.
Altogether the price other people are now having to pay for DEFRA's sgameful incompetence is beginning to look alarming"

btw After the floods in 2000 there were loads if investigations and pledges.
also from eye but not literally quoted as I'm lazy

In 2003 ministers pledged to implement the conclusions of the "flood and coastal defense funding review" seeking new funding to maintain and improve protection to built-up areas.
In 2004 a report on future flooding by the DTI's "horizon scanning2 centre Foresight pointed out that if flood management policies remained unchanged "the damage could be very costly".
they said funding plans fell £700mill" short over the next ten years. (damage from the 2000 floods were estimated at 750mill)

The National Audit office produced a report last week taht the Environment Agency had not met its target to keep just 63% of England's flood defence system up to scratch. the Agency says it needs another 150£mill a year from the government to bring everything up to its target standards.

The aganecy's regional flood defence committees have made several budget cutbacks. A major improvement scheme was called of in York due to lack of funds...much of York is now under water.

and people wonder why I don't like politicians