

The Mail on Sunday appears to suggest that after all, the flooding that the UK is currently experiencing might well have been caused by gays. Unlike former UKIP councillor David Silvester, who said the floods were a punishment from God for same-sex marriage, the Mail and a Tory MP suggest that the funds spent on gay pride marches and Stonewall mugs could have been better spent on sandbags.



In the article, published in this morning’s Mail on Sunday, the newspaper said that under Lord (Chris) Smith of Finsbury, who was the UK’s first openly gay MP and cabinet minister, the Environment Agency spent £639 on Stonewall mugs. The mugs to promote gay equality cost the same as 250 sandbags.

The paper also points out that the Environment Agency spent £30,000 as the lead sponsor of Birmingham Pride in 2009 along with a half page advertisement in the Independent newspaper about diversity. Over the years since Lord Smith has been the agency’s chairman, it has provided staff members with T-shirts to wear at gay pride festivals. Just like almost other government department and agency and many local councils.

Conservative MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, Ian Liddell-Grainger, who voted against same-sex marriage and gay couples adopting told the Mail on Sunday: “It seems like Chris Smith is spending taxpayers’ money on his own pet projects. He has been proven to be wanting at every level dealing with these floods. ”



Mr Liddell-Grainger (photographed above), who was exposed by the Daily Telegraph in 2009 as having been the MP who had claimed the most money for food, said: “It was crass stupidity to tell people who are living on flood plains that they’ve got it wrong. Now this shows that he’s actually made silly choices himself to spend hundreds of pounds on mugs and thousands sponsoring a Gay Pride event.

“It gives no help to people in my constituency. He should go now and not hang around and spend more money on mugs which are not helping any flood victims. The only mug I can think of is Lord Smith.”

On Thursday, on Question Time and This Week, BBC presenters joked that the flooding was caused by a gay man.