Tories Undecided Who To Blame For Flooding.

Eric Pickles has decided to break ranks with his fellow Tory conmen and has now admitted that it is the cuts that are to blame for the catastrophe unfolding in Somerset. David Cameron had sought to blame Labour hoping that would be enough to draw attention away from the £97 million cut in spending on flood defences that he had sanctioned as soon as he had slithered into No.10. Recognising that no one was fooled by this clumsy attempt to shift the blame, Eric Pickles has now decided that the best thing to do is tell the truth - something no Tory has attempted in living memory. However, his admission was accompanied by a plea for the electorate to "forget the past" on the basis that it is the charitable thing to do if blaming Labour won't wash. Nonetheless he couldn't resist putting at least some of the blame on the Environment Agency. "We perhaps relied too much on the Environment Agency's advice," he told the BBC, "we thought we were dealing with experts." In fact the Environment Agency warned the government what might happen if they cut spending on flood defences four years ago but were ignored. Which just goes to show that, even when they try to tell the truth, Tories still can't resist telling a few porkies at the same time. Still you can't blame them. Somerset is a largely Tory-voting area and, if they can hide the truth that spending cuts undermines the whole economy with a few nonsensical homilies that the national budget is just like a household budget, they can't hide the flood water lapping at the front doors of those stupid enough to have voted for them. The overarching truth is that austerity is bad for everyone, except the very rich, and simply hoping that Tory voters are too dim to understand this will not be enough to win them the next election after all. Despite all their efforts to "shrink" government so they can be paid for doing nothing, the Tories are now beginning to realise that, like the rest of us, they will have to work for a living instead.