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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Matthew Weaver and Mark Tran

Storm Desmond: Osborne announces £50m flood fund – as it happened

Families and business owners begin the huge task of cleaning up after floods caused by Storm Desmond.

Closing summary

We are closing this live blog; here are today’s main points.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has fleshed out his idea for owners of second homes to open their doors to flood victims, in a piece for the Guardian. He also urged the government to look again at flood schemes across the country to make sure they are fit for purpose.

Many local people have already helped out by offering shelter to flood victims in the immediate aftermath of the floods; however, moving beyond the immediate problem, many of these families are now looking to find temporary properties to live in until their own homes are once more habitable. South Lakeland has the third highest proportion of second homes of any local authority in the country, with thousands of holiday homes in the area. It would be fantastic if second-home owners whose properties would otherwise be sitting empty were willing to make these available to those whose homes have been destroyed. We have already had over a dozen concrete offers of help, while many more have expressed an interest.

Something rare has washed up in Dorset after Storm Desmond. Flotillas of velella velella, known as By-the-wind Sailors, have been found on beaches near Lulworth and Bridport. Julie Hatcher, of Dorset Wildlife Trust, told the BBC: “They are designed to blow around and never come to land so to get a big mass stranding is rare.”

Updated

The UK government was warned by its official climate change advisers in October that it needed to take action on the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding but rejected the advice. Damian Carrington and Patrick Wintour have the story. Here is an extract.

The decision not to develop to develop a strategy to address increase flooding risk came just a few weeks before Storm Desmond brought about severe flooding in Cumbria, Lancashire and other parts of the north west causing an estimated £500m of damage.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) also told the Guardian that, despite David Cameron’s promise to do so, the government had failed to learn lessons from the widespread flooding in the winter of 2013-14. Those floods led to emergency financial bailouts to flood defence funds which had previously been cut under the coalition government.

In June, the CCC’s statutory report on the UK’s progress on climate change highlighted dealing with floods from extreme weather as the government’s most serious failing in preparing for the impacts of global warming. It stated: “Plans and policies, or progress in addressing vulnerabilities, are lacking”.

The CCC said “residual” flood risk – the flooding resulting from extreme weather events that cannot be prevented by normal flood defences – was increasing. On Monday, environment secretary Liz Truss said the Storm Desmond floods had resulted from “extreme weather conditions” and “unprecedented amount of rainfall.”

The CCC recommended that the government should “develop a strategy to address the increasing number of homes in areas of high flood risk”. But in October the government replied: “We believe that a strategy to address future residual risk would not be appropriate at this time.”

Updated

River Wyre and St Michael’s South, near Preston, Lancashire, is the only area of the UK still under a severe weather warning, with further rain “expected through the evening and overnight”. Fred Searle writes:

Rising river levels are not anticipated to have “a significant effect on the current flooding situation in St Michael’s,” according to the Environment Agency website, but local businesses are bracing themselves.

Carl Palmer, the general manager at The Horn’s Inn in Churchtown said sandbags were delivered by Wyre council yesterday to prepare for adverse weather this week. He reported that the basement of the pub had been under 10ft of water following flooding on Saturday.

Priory Homecare, based in St Michael’s and which provides carers to elderly and disabled people in the Wyre district, said it was staying put for now but had a contingency plan to transfer to an office on higher ground if flooding forces them out.

Although the company’s office has so far escaped flooding, many of its clients have been affected. The company’s owner, Carol Smith, said: “A lot of our service users have been flooded. A lot of them are inaccessible. But our care workers have done a sterling job and managed to supply services to everybody - even if it has meant walking or getting four-wheel drives to take carers to clients homes. They [the carers] have been absolutely marvellous - turning out in very difficult situations to make sure community needs are met.”

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has released more pictures of its rescue efforts.

The Institute of Directors has called for a temporary business rates holiday for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) which have been affected by flooding. Chris Ward of IoD Cumbria said:

The £50m fund and grants announced by the chancellor will help, but getting back to business as usual in the affected areas merits more intervention. Politicians should consider whether moves like a business rates holiday for SMEs would be appropriate. If local authorities were to forego one month of business rates, small businesses would receive an immediate cash boost to help get themselves back to health and let them continue to play the vital role they do as a vibrant part of the North West economy.

Helen Pidd describes the plight of one family in Northumberland as it copes with the aftermath of flooding for the second time in a decade.

Fifteen families have had to leave their homes in Haydon Bridge, 10 miles upstream from the pretty tourist town of Corbridge in Northumberland. The Davisons – Kathleen and her husband Lyndon, and their teenage daughters – were one. On Wednesday they had humidifiers drying out their sodden ground floor as they prepared to move into rented accommodation for the second time in 10 years.

“Last time, in 2005, the water was up to our skirting boards - it went half a foot above that this time,” said Kathleen, 49, a sales adviser. “But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter how high it goes. If it gets in, the whole ground floor is ruined. We’ll have to move out for at least six months.”

“We’re just forgotten about up here,” said Lyndon, 50, a service engineer, complaining that much of the focus locally was on Corbridge, with its more affluent population, independent shops and Roman heritage. “We’re basically a working village. They’re trying to close our fire station at the moment, yet without it the flooding here would have been a hundred times worse.”

He continued: “The north-east generally gets forgotten. Look at what happened after the floods last year in the Somerset levels. How much has the government promised to spend there? £15.5m is it? And they’ve dredged the rivers. What are they going to do here? I think there’s a north-south divide in flood protection in this country.”

Flooded home in Haydon Bridge
Haydon Bridge Photograph: Helen Pidd

Updated

Jamie Reed, Labour MP for Copeland, has written a scathing piece for the Guardian Northerner blog in which he blasts the Department for Environment - run by Liz Truss - as the weakest department in Whitehall. Here are his key points.

As a former shadow environment minister, I warned the government when it made cuts to flood defence schemes, that these cuts represented a false economy: that the country and those affected communities would end up paying more than any cuts would save in the long run. The Environment Agency (EA) warned them too, and specialist flood groups, flood victim support groups and many others.

All of the warnings fell upon deaf ears. No government can predict, or be blamed for the weather, but the government knew that the likelihood of the devastation that flooding can cause would be increased by cuts to flood defence spending. In this knowledge, it went ahead and cut anyway. Whether or not this would have prevented some of the chaos seen this weekend is impossible to know and in any event, now irrelevant.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the weakest department in Whitehall. Bossed and bullied, I cannot recall a time when it won a serious policy battle or found itself with a Secretary of State prepared to fight the Treasury for the cash to protect its capability. The EA, Defra’s more sprightly sibling has also now found itself boxed in and so ends up on national television both explaining and taking the blame for policy decisions it actively lobbied against.

What is now needed is a government backed “Commission for Cumbrian Infrastructure and Resilience”’. This Commission – and I have asked David Cameron to establish such – should have the power to plan and resource improvements to the county’s infrastructure, improving resilience in the face of what will be extreme future weather events and taking into account the special requirements of the county.

The Association of British Insurers has a film on how to protect your home if you live in a flood prone area, or make a claim if you’re recovering from a flood. You can watch the video here.

Footage recorded by Kinder mountain rescue on Sunday shows how the team carefully makes its way around residential streets in Carlisle that have been flooded as a result of Storm Desmond. They carry out house-to-house checks and come across several residents trapped by water that was still rising as this was filmed.

The BBC’s graphics team has a clever before-and-after visualisation of the floods on Brunton Crescent, Carlisle.

null

Delays on the west coast main line until Monday

National Rail has warned of further delays on the west coast main line between Carlisle and Glasgow until Monday.

In a statement it said:

Flood water has damaged some signals near Carlisle and Oxenholme Lake District and trains have to run past these signals at a reduced speed. As a result of this, journey times will be extended by up to 30 minutes until the end of service Monday 14 December.

Police in Carlisle are monitoring the flood-damaged Warwick Bridge with CCTV cameras in an effort to prevent heavy vehicles causing further damage.

A fundraising appeal, launched on Saturday evening to help Cumbrians hit by the floods, has already raised around £600,000, with the government promising to match the total raised up to £1m, writes Fred Searle.

The phones at Cumbria Community Foundation, which is running the Cumbria 2015 Flood Appeal, have been ringing non-stop as donations pour in.

Members of the public have pledged fund raising activities ranging from carol services to pub quizzes and sponsored bike rides. There have also been large donations from organisations such as Nuclear Management Partners, Francis C Scott Charitable Trust and South Lakeland District Council.

Meanwhile, bestselling author and shepherd James Rebanks, has auctioned off a day’s lambing at his farm in the Lake District in April, raising £3,600.

Annalee Holliday, the Cumbria Community Foundation’s communications officer, said: “It’s been amazing. There are so many people on social media doing fundraising for us. And with it getting in the national newspapers lately, we’re just getting so many phone calls to donate over the phone as well. We’re very busy at the moment.”

Meanwhile, the Lancashire’s Community Foundation has launched its own flood appeal for its county.

Updated

Floods minister Rory Stewart is appearing before the Environmental Audit Committee for its inquiry on sustainable development. You can follow it on Parliament TV.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the latest developments:

Updated

Flood warnings reduced to six

As waters continue to recede the number of flood warnings has been cut again despite warnings of further rain.

The Environment Agency now has six flood warning in place: three in the north-east, two in the north-west and one in Wales. A severe flood warning for south of St Michaels in Lancashire remains in place.

Patrick Wintour has more on the government’s £50m flood fund.

In a statement the Treasury said the money will:

  • Help the people directly affected by the floods – providing local authorities with over £500 for each household affected; for example, to help with temporary accommodation costs whilst we work to get people back into their homes;upport people as they protect their homes against future floods by providing grants of up to £5,000, so they can install new flood barriers, replace doors and windows with water resistant alternatives, or move electricity sockets up to a safer level;
  • Ensure flood affected businesses that have had their trading disrupted can get back on their feet, with funding equivalent to £2,500 provided to local authorities for each business affected and funding specifically provided for farmers to help restore their land;
  • Help Cumbria and Lancashire assess the damage to the local highway network following the events over the weekend, to allow us to understand what additional local transport infrastructure funding could be provided to help repair roads and bridges damaged; and
  • Bring the local flood defences back up to their target conditions, with an additional £10m invested through the Environment Agency to repair the flood defences that were damaged over the weekend.

To ensure this funding is delivered quickly and efficiently, the government is creating a new community recovery scheme worth nearly £40m. It will be run by local authorities and provide targeted support on the same basis as in the floods that affected the south-west and other parts of the country in 2013/14.

The government will match the money raised by the Cumbria Foundation’s flood appeal up to £1m.

Truss to chair Cobra meeting

Liz Truss
Liz Truss Photograph: UK Parliament

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss is to chair another meeting of the government’s emergency committee on how the government can help recovery efforts.

In a statement she promised further support. It said:

In Cumbria and Lancashire the flood waters continue to ease and river levels are still falling. While there is further rain forecast for the area, it is not expected to be anything like as heavy as last weekend.

Many services have been restored but large numbers of people are still out of their homes and there remains a lot of work to do. As the flood waters begin to recede, our priority is shifting from rescue to recovery and getting those families affected by this week’s devastating floods back into their homes, and businesses back on their feet. Later today I will chair a further COBR meeting to assess where, and how, we can most effectively deploy further resources from across government to support affected communities.

Further packages of support will be confirmed in the coming day.

After flood visits from David Cameron on Monday, and Environment Secretary Liz Truss on Tuesday, its the turn of Communities Secretary Greg Clark to inspect the troops.

Cumbria police is urging the public not to risk their lives by trying to cross flood-damaged bridges in the county. It list 13 bridges damages or completely lost after the floods.

  • Completely lost: Pooley Bridge and Middleton Hall Bridge have been completely lost
  • Partially lost: Little Braithwaite Bridge, Gowan Old Bridge (Staveley), Hawes Bridge (Natland), Abbey Bridge (Staveley) and Millers Footbridge in Cockermouth.
  • Closed to traffic after damage: Eden Bridge (Carlisle), Greta Bridge (Keswick), Derwent Bridge (Cockermouth), Eamont Bridge (near Penrith), St Lawrence Bridge (Appleby) and the bridge at New Road (Burneside.are closed to all traffic, including pedestrians pending diving inspections

Superintendent Justin Bibby said: “It is imperative that members of the public listen to the advice regarding the closure of bridges. The bridges are closed for a reason and we do not want anyone to risk their lives.”

Engineers have checked more than 70 Cumbrian bridges, according to Radio Cumbria’s Steven Bell.

The clear up continues at Pooley Bridge in Ullswater, Cumbria after it was washed away by high water caused by Storm Desmond.
The clear up continues at Pooley Bridge in Ullswater, Cumbria after it was washed away by high water caused by Storm Desmond. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Updated

Clearing up after floods at Walton’s Post Office and Store in 1927 following the Keppel Cove Dam burst, Cumbria
Clearing up after floods at Walton’s Post Office and Store in 1927 following the Keppel Cove Dam burst, Cumbria Photograph: Courtesy: Ullswatermemorial.co.uk

Katy Stoddard has been going through the archives to see how our predecessors covered the 1927 floods in the Lake District after the Keppel dam was washed away in a storm.

The Manchester Guardian recounted how 14-year-old boy, Magnus Gordon, rescued his grandmother and a kitten on a raft made of tied-together back doors.

Josh Halliday has more on the woman who was due to get married at Carlisle United’s football stadium - now waterlogged. Here is part of his despatch.

Bride-to-be Sophie Watters was inconsolable when she saw pictures of Carlisle United’s submerged stadium on television - and not only because she’s a huge fan of the club.

Watters, 28, and her fiancé Richard Cakans, 38, were due to have their wedding reception at Brunton Park this Saturday. But those plans now lie in ruins thanks to Storm Desmond.

Speaking as teams of volunteers helped clear debris from the devastated stadium on Wednesday, Watters said she was “gutted, devastated” her big day has been ruined. “It was perfect. I’d planned it in four weeks so I could get back to my business and then this happens,” she said.

Watters and her fiancé still plan to marry on Saturday - although a replacement reception venue has been near-impossible to find, with most places either hit by power cuts or already booked out for Christmas parties.

In spite of it all, she said, the club have been great. “I’m here to help them because they’ve helped us,” Watters said, donning heavy duty gloves to help with lift sodden objects from the stadium.

Dozens of volunteers helped club staff shift debris including televisions, washing machines, benches, tables and gym-gear as the full scale of the devastation inside the stadium became clear. The club’s medical room lay in tatters when journalists were shown the ruin on Wednesday morning. In Carlisle’s home dressing room, sodden football kit was strewn across the muddy floor.

Lee Fearn, 30, the club’s fitness and conditioning coach, was heaving ruined equipment out of the stadium gym with the help of about 30 volunteers.

The state of the stadium was “much worse” than he expected.

“Pretty much everything from the gym is destroyed,” he said. “The last time it happened up here you see the pictures on television and newspapers but they disappear after a week or so.”

Clearing up at Carlisle United's stadium
Lee Fearn, 30, Carlisle United’s fitness coach, clears ruined gym equipment from Brunton Park stadium Photograph: Josh Halliday for the Guardian

Updated

Flood warnings reduced

The Environment Agency has reduced the number of flood warnings in the north of England to 11, with one severe flood warning still in place for the River Wyre at south of St Michaels, Lancashire.

Map of flood warnings
Map of flood warnings

Helen Pidd has been talking to a resident in from Corbridge, Northumberland, who feels the north-east has been neglected by the media.

“There’s been so much on the TV about Cumbria and the north-west – but what about us?” asked Andy Feeley, as he helped his brother Ian clear his ruined house in Corbridge.

“They kept showing an aerial shot of Carlisle football pitch but they could just as easily have come here and shown our rugby and cricket pitches under water,” he said, gesturing to the waterlogged fields behind him.

This is the second time Ian Feeley’s house, on the Stanners, near Corbridge station, has flooded in 10 years. Water in the houses on his lane and nearby Station Road were engulfed by waters five-feet deep when the River Tyne rose over new flood defences installed just this January at a cost of £1.2m.

According to the Environment Agency, at the height of the storm the Tyne rose to 5.14 metres in Corbridge, its highest recorded level. The resulting flooding has left 45 households homeless in the village. In total 99 properties were flooded out in Northumberland, according to the council.

Despite the prospect of renovating the whole of the ground floor – again – Ian was philosophical about his situation. “The Environment Agency has already spent so much money raising the flood defences. What more can they do, really? Do you really want to be living in the shadow of a big concrete wall? It’ll be like living in East Berlin.”

He said he was trying to take some positives from the situation. A builder by trade, he will be paid by his insurance company to renovate his own house - “on the upside, it’s nice to keep the house up-to-date” he joked – and he said didn’t want to move. “I still want to live here. I think about all the lovely walks we have by the river, those summer evenings sitting in the back garden with the patio doors open, the grandchildren playing, woodpeckers feeding. Listen to me, I could write a poem. We’ll be back.”

Ian Feeley in Corbridge
Ian Feeley shed Corbridge Photograph: Helen Pidd/Helen Pi

Updated

Osborne said funds will be distributed by local councils in an effort to overcome “administrative problems” that delayed previous emergency payments. Cumbria police said its estimated worst-case scenario was that as many as 6,425 homes were flooded in the county. The government yesterday announced that an estimated 5,000 households and companies in Cumbria and Lancashire are to be given temporary relief from their council tax and business rates.

At prime minister’s question time, Osborne confirmed under questioning from Labour’s Angela Eagle - who was standing in for Jeremy Corbyn - that families will get the same level of help as last time. Families will get up to £5,000, the chancellor told MPs. He also said the government will spend £2bn on flood defences, compared to Labour’s £1bn per parliament. Osborne adds that the government will match by up to £1m the money the Cumbrian foundation is raising for its flood appeal.

Aerial footage from an Irish military helicopter shows extensive flooding in the eastern and central Irish counties of Galway, Westmeath and Mayo. The footage was taken on Tuesday, days after Storm Desmond hit

Chancellor announces £50m fund to help flood victims

Chancellor George Osborne has announced a £50m fund to help victims of floods. Politics live has more ...

Updated

A Carlisle resident tells workers from the relief charity the Al-Imdaad Foundation that it took six Carlisle United players to get his sodden sofa out on the street to dry.

Time for the forecast...

The Met Office is still warning of more rain to come, but it says the impact will be “minor”.

Train passengers have praised the efforts of Network Rail and Virgin Trains to get services in the north west up and running again despite suffering disrupted journeys, writes Fred Searle.

“A small gesture of thanks to the guys at Network Rail who worked hard through the night to clear the mess and reopen a badly damaged railway line,” wrote Chris Prestage on Facebook.

“Kudos to Network Rail and Virgin trains,” added Andy Sweetman.

“They made it and I boarded the first train that got through Carlisle going south [yesterday]. It appeared to go through several identities. Originally described as the 11.46, it quickly became the 12.08 and then further changes on the way down. It was also the ‘wrong way round’ and even the crew kept being surprised by the numerous changes. But they made it and looked after us well and, considering everything, that’s a great result.”

The Westmorland Gazette has an extraordinary picture of flood victim Peter Clarkson swimming across his kitchen.

It said the Kendal resident was forced to wade through waist-deep, cold water to reach the switch box and get the sump pumps working again.

Sophie Watters
Sophie Watters Photograph: Josh Halliday

Bride-to-be Sophie Watters was inconsolable when she saw pictures of Carlisle United’s submerged stadium on television - and not only because she’s a huge fan of the club, writes Josh Halliday.

Watters, 28, and her fiancé Richard Cakans, 38, were due to have their wedding reception at Brunton Park this Saturday. But those plans now lie in ruins thanks to Storm Desmond.

Speaking as teams of volunteers helped clear debris from the devastated stadium on Wednesday, Watters said “gutted, devastated” her big day has been ruined. “It was perfect. I’d planned it in four weeks so I could get back to my business and then this happens,” she said.

Watters and her fiancé still plan to marry on Saturday - although a replacement reception venue has been impossible to find, with most places either hit by power cuts or already booked out for Christmas parties.

In spite of it all, the club have been great. “I’m here to help them because they’ve helped us,” she said, donning heavy duty gloves to help with lift sodden objects from the stadium.

Councillor Chris Hogg
Councillor Chris Hogg Photograph: Mike Glover

The Mayor of one of the towns worst affected by the flooding during Storm Desmond has had to issue a new appeal – for people to stop donating goods, writes Mike Glover.

Councillor Chris Hogg set up a special Kendal Cares emergency support group and reception centre in Kendal Town Hall. Almost 1,400 families in the town were evacuated from their homes at the weekend.

Generous people in the town, and van loads of goods from other towns not affected, poured into Kendal.

The council chamber was full of blankets, bedding, clothes and toys for children. The Bindloss room, normally used for committee meetings, was full of food and household goods.

But supply far outstripped demand and now Hogg has announced on social media: “Due to the overwhelming generosity of people, we do not need any more clothes or food and are having a problem with more donations coming in, with nowhere for them to go!

“Please don’t bring any more! Thank you so much!”

The plea to stop does not apply to the cash appeal by charity Cumbria Community Foundation which set itself a target of £1m on Sunday. It is about half-way there.

The foundation gives immediate cash loans of up to £500 to desperate families as well as long-term support.

A local fisherman helped engineers get a line across the River Eamont at Pooley Bridge, Cumbria after the bridge and fibre optic cables were washed away in the flood.
A local fisherman helped engineers get a line across the River Eamont at Pooley Bridge, Cumbria after the bridge and fibre optic cables were washed away in the flood. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

The landlord of the Sun Inn in Pooley Bridge fears that his business will suffer after the village bridge was washed away in the floods.

The pub, at northern end of Ullswater is open for trade again after providing refuge for people whose homes were flooded.

Landlord John McGuire said he has been given permission to trade after a messy cleanup operation. He said: “We’ve had to put new chillers in and a new under-counter cooling system. Until you get that [sanitation] certificate you can’t expect people to work in conditions where dirty water would have been”.

McGuire fears for the future because of loss of trade from the destruction of the bridge. Visitors from the nearby M6 now have to take a 20 mile detour to get to the pub he explained.

Aerial footage taken over the weekend graphically showed the destruction of the bridge.

Since then McGuire said engineers have been “scratching their heads” working out how to replace the bridge. “All sorts of things are being bandied about whereby it could be anything up to two years to build a bridge, but it’s all speculation,” he said.

McGuire said a local fisherman, James Mackey, helped BT engineers get replacement cables across the swollen River Eamont, by casting a line over the water. An early attempt at getting a line across got stuck in a tree, he said. Mackey saved BT three days work, he claimed.

McGuire said he was insured but is weighing up whether to put in a claim because of fears that his premium will rise if he does. He is also considering claiming for loss of trade from the destruction of the bridge.

Updated

BBC Radio 4’s Today programme had a cheering interview with Gordon Tweedie, a Cumbrian dairy farmer who has been reunited with a herd of cows that he feared had perished in the floods.

Tweedie, who farms near Penrith, lost 45 cows in the floods.

All of them have now been recovered including one that turned up 20 miles away on a golf course beyond Carlisle.

Tweedie said the cow could swim a bit but was also carried away in the flood water.

He added that other farmers had not been so lucky. “We are very concerned about those who have lost lots of stock, lots of sheep. There’s a group of goats that have gone down the river ... We urge the government and all the other authorities to provide help for agriculture just like they are providing help for the towns and cities.”

He added: “All’s well with [my] cattle, but please remember the people in the rural areas of Cumbria who are in great need at the moment and there’s lots of restoration work to be done.”

Updated

Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

Before vowing to contact every flood-hit parish, Stewart has been involved in a spat with Guardian columnist George Monbiot.

In his Tuesday column Monbiot criticised Stewart, and Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, for questioning calls for the better management of watersheds to prevent flooding.

In 2013, Rory Stewart blasted the National Trust because it “allows water to ruin the lowland pastures of their small tenant farms, apparently on the advice of the Environment Agency”. In 2014, he mocked the RSPB and the water company United Utilities for managing their land “in a way that ‘increased biodiversity, decreased flooding, increased carbon capture’” ...

Now Messrs Stewart and Farron wring their hands and wring out their clothes, lamenting this inexplicable act of God.

Stewart appears to be sticking to his views but offered to discuss the issue with Monbiot as well as the Environment Agency and the Met Office.

Writing on the Conservativehome blog, Andrew Gimson said Stewart’s run-in with Monbiot will be regarded as a feather in his new flood minister’s cap.

Here’s an extract of Gimson’s sympathetic profile of Stewart:

Early life was crowded with incident: he had been under fire in Iraq, walked 6,000 miles across Asia, written a successful book about the Afghan section of that walk, become a professor at Harvard and sold the rights to his story to Brad Pitt, who was reported to be planning a major motion picture with Orlando Bloom as the hero.

And now Stewart is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Environment and Rural Affairs. Just now, this means he is floods minister. His gift for being on the spot as dramatic events unfold has not deserted him.

His vast constituency of Penrith and the Border has been grievously afflicted by the floods. Even in normal times it can take two hours to drive from one end of the seat to the other, which is the largest in England and includes 40 miles of the border with Scotland.

We have seen Stewart popping up all over this great expanse of country in a high-visibility jacket, paying tribute in an earnest tone to the emergency services, including contingents from as far away as Cornwall, and to his own constituents. There has been a total absence of Churchillian bombast, and a palpable concern for people whose livelihoods have been wrecked.

It falls to him as well as to his boss, Liz Truss, the Environment Secretary, to defend the Tories’ record since 2010 on flood defence. He has been denounced in the Guardian by George Monbiot: a rite of passage without which one cannot be said, in environmental circles, to have arrived.

Updated

Floods minister Rory Stewart has vowed to contact every parish hit by the floods including areas in Yorkshire, Northumberland and Lancashire, as well as Cumbria.

Updated

Heavy rain is forecast to return to Cumbria later with up to 12 hours of rainfall and further flooding possible, residents have been warned, writes Josh Halliday in Penrith.


Some forecasters have predicted between 20mm and 40mm of rainfall starting on Wednesday afternoon.


The Environment Agency said up to 58mm of rain could fall on Wednesday evening into Thursday, potentially hampering the recovery of the areas worst-hit at the weekend.

However, any flooding would not be of the same magnitude as that caused by Storm Desmond, which saw thousands of people evacuated from their homes and many more without power for days.

Sixteen flood alerts remain in place across Cumbria and Lancashire – however 48 have been removed in the past 24 hours indicating that the worst of the storm is over.
Only one severe weather warning, meaning there is a risk to life, remains in place – for the area around the Lancashire village of St Michaels, south of the swollen river Wyre.

Flood warnings remain in place for areas around the Rivers Eden an Petteril, including Keswick campsite and Carlisle city centre – whose main artery, Warwick Road, only began to return to normal on Tuesday amid a clear-up by Carlisle United footballers.

In a flood warning posted on Tuesday evening, the Environment Agency warned of more rain to come:

“River levels have peaked and are receding to normal levels however a flood alert remains in force. We advise that you keep an eye on the situation by listening to weather forecasts, checking our web pages or calling Floodline.
“Operational teams are focusing on removal of water. Key to this is identifying suitable sites for the installation of pumping equipment which is being brought in from across the country.

“Our Incident Response teams are on 24 hour duty. We will continue to monitor the situation and update this forecast as new information becomes available. Rain is forecast between 5am and mid day on the 9th December of up to 10mm in 1 hour. This is a low confidence forecast.

“This is forecast for the north west and south Lakes area. A further persistent band of rain is forecast over Cumbria Wednesday evening of up to 58mm maximum and will continue into Thursday.”

Steve Cleaton, of BBC Weather, said rain would begin to ease off in the early hours of Thursday.

“There is scope for some issues because of the persistent rain but nothing like what it was over the weekend - when there was 36 hours of rain. This will be about 10 to 12 hours”, he said.

“The level of rainfall will be between 20mm to 40mm - it’s a reasonable amount of rain but not comparable to what we had.”

Carlisle residents leave sodden furniture and belongings on the street as flood recovery continues.
Carlisle residents leave sodden furniture and belongings on the street as flood recovery continues. Photograph: Ashley Cooper / Barcroft Media

Summary

Welcome to our continuing live coverage of the aftermath of Storm Desmond as heavy rain returns to Cumbria threatening further flooding and hampering the cleanup operation.

Here’s a round up of how things currently stand:

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For four decades, a controversial idea has shaped how autism is understood by researchers, healthcare professionals and the public: the claim that autistic people are “mind blind”. The phrase suggests an inability to grasp what others think or feel. It is simple, memorable – and wrong.
The Conversation
The Conversation
Demna brings sexy back in effort to reinvigorate Gucci
Designer’s first catwalk for the brand in Milan flirts with bad taste with short, tight dresses and a diamante G-string
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Neil Sedaka death: Legendary singer-songwriter behind ‘(Is This the Way to) Amarillo’ was 86
Sedaka was the songwriter behind a string of popular hits including ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do’ and ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
A 'Mansion Tax' in Los Angeles Is Worsening the City's Housing Crisis
A transfer tax on high-value real estate transactions is reducing the number of homes on the market and limiting new construction.
Reason
Reason
Pink ‘has moved to New York and is in running to take over Kelly Clarkson’s talk show’
After being spotted in the Big Apple, singer Pink is said to have moved to New York and is said to be in the running to take over Kelly Clarkson’s NBC talk show.
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