Champagne waves spuming the sea wall and houses behind.
Dog down the street turns out to be a seal pup. But the
floodwater’s not deep enough and it throws itself back into the pink-tinged harbour.
Sunset returns, now the clouds have broken; reflected by so much water, more glorious than ever.
Inland – if that’s the word – lush green acres outnumbered
by limitless grey lagoons.
The expanse; and the expense.
Then a dry patch where builder Sam Notaro has defended his self-built
£1m house with five foot earthworks. Red brick pile and a band of brown earth throw a ring of orange into the surrounding floodwater.
Prime minister David Cameron pronounced this ‘a biblical
scene’ when he helicoptered into Somerset. But Cameron is no deus ex machina. His last-but-one
predecessor famously didn’t do religion, and Cameron can’t do biblical.
Years of shirtsleeves, matter of fact; conversation not
oration. Now Wellington boots and a warm fleece. Because Dave will always be on your level, OK?
Water’s rising but Cameron cannot find it in him to offer a
moment of transcendence – the prime task of a Churchill; occasionally Tony Blair.
Amidst the ‘biblical scene’ in which he is clearly only ankle deep, he fails to
minister to the people of the Somerset Levels.
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