'Show us you care prime minister'
- Published
Boris Johnson visited South Yorkshire during flooding in November 2019, ahead of the general election
'Get a grip you drip!'
That's the headline blaring out from the front page of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror as Boris Johnson continues to resist calls for him to visit the communities hardest hit by the flooding emergency, especially those beside the rivers Severn and Wye.
There's no question many of those suffering the worst effects are demanding more government investment in flood protection.
But does this translate into a genuine demand for senior politicians to come a-calling?
Are we hearing any great clamour on those flooded streets? Please let me know.
My suspicion is demands for ministerial, or prime ministerial, visits stem mainly from us in the media.
Ironbridge, in Shropshire, is one of the towns along the River Severn worst affected by the current floods
They deliver the time-honoured headline or a neat clip of actuality when our leaders come to see it for themselves with "their own eyes": Who else's eyes?
Of course opposition parties can always be relied upon to seize their opportunity to present any government of the day as uncaring.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn points out Boris Johnson managed to find time to attend a Conservative fundraiser but not to meet people suffering great hardship in Shropshire, the county where Mr Corbyn grew up.
And remember, Mr Johnson did the rounds of flood-hit areas of Yorkshire while the election was on.
But that was then, this is now: And the version of "now" presented to us by Downing Street is of a prime minister closeted with his close advisers supervising intensive preparations for next month's trade negotiations with the European Union.
A perfect storm
Defra minister Rebecca Pow visited the West Midlands region at the beginning of the emergency
There are mixed messages too among the local authority leaders at the sharp end of all this.
Telford council's Labour leader Shaun Davies may support his party's calls for Boris Johnson to pay him a call, but his Conservative counterpart in Herefordshire, David Hitchener, is equally emphatic that local public services are fully-stretched coping with the emergency itself.
The last thing they need is the extra demands of heightened security and organising media facilities.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham), Philip Dunne (Ludlow) and Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) are among the Conservative MPs with flooding in their constituencies swelling the debate about what more needs to be done.
But they stop short of inviting the prime minister.
Mr Garnier tells us this would be nothing more than a "photo opportunity".
Bewdley, in Worcestershire, is another town alongside the Severn that's suffering badly in the floods
Mr Kawczynski reminds us the Defra minister Rebecca Pow visited the area at the beginning of the emergency. But that's not exactly breaking news is it.
A visit by the PM would at least be "a gesture of solidarity with the people", I hear one radio presenter tell us. Or just gesture politics, I wonder?
It certainly reinforces Boris Johnson's determination not to turn up at every major event but to leave it to individual ministers to front-up instead.
The problem is that when they do so they have to be capable of getting the politics right.
When the Defra Secretary George Eustice tells a conference in Birmingham, barely 20 miles from flooded Bewdley, that he does not need to go there because he has "seen it from the train", he evokes memories of President George W Bush feebly viewing the New Orleans floods from a height of 35,000 feet aboard Air Force One.
When challenged on this by Mary Rhodes during BBC One's Midlands Today, the best Mark Garnier can say for Mr Eustice is: "Look, he's a farmer!"
At least Mr Eustice's visit the next day to the flood zone gives him his opportunity to improve his messaging.
Because he's not really just a farmer, Mr Garnier. He is also a Cabinet minister and, as such, he is as much a professional communicator as you and I are.