“Money is no object in this relief effort,” came the passionate anti-austerity cry. “Whatever money is needed for it will be spent. We will take whatever steps are necessary.” David Cameron made this statement during the flood crisis of February 2014, and his defenders will point out that the prime minister was referring to flood relief, not defence. But here is “false economy” at its starkest: cutting back on services ostensibly to save money, then having to spend far more on the consequences. As official documents now show, the government’s own advisory board recently pointed out that a lack of funds would leave northern communities at risk of floods. One £180m floods defence project was scrapped in Leeds, for example. And now? Well, according to KPMG estimates, the long-term cost of the disaster to everyone could be somewhere between £5bn and £5.8bn.

Labour calls for long-term cross-party flood protection plan Read more

This is not to claim that proper investment in flood defences would have entirely prevented this disaster, but it certainly could have mitigated the consequences. And “false economy” is a flawed concept, because not everything can be reduced to pound signs. Who can put a price on the misery of individuals in their current plight, at the destruction of their treasured positions, their beloved homes and businesses? But the flood disaster exposes – brutally – how the government’s economic policies leave this country exposed to the great challenges and risks of the future. A threat, you could say, to national security, our economic security and your family’s security.

When there’s a disaster like this, there’s inevitably a debate about the exact contributing role of climate change. Park it on one side: it is sufficient to state that the scientific consensus is that rising global temperatures will mean more frequent extreme weather events. But Britain has been left hopelessly unprepared for the consequences. It’s not just the lack of infrastructure for events like this. Cameron originally staked his claim as a moderniser by being a husky-loving environmentalist. A couple of years ago, he was allegedly ordering his team to “get rid of all the green crap”, and renewable energy subsidies have been cut. But climate change is both a threat and an opportunity: Germany shows that an active state can promote renewable energy industries, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. Even one prominent Tory donor, Alexander Temerko, has slammed the government for cutting renewable subsidies, holding George Osborne “totally responsible for the total destruction of energy policy.”

Climate change is both a threat and an opportunity

We could go on. The government refuses to invest, so we end up increasingly dependent on China’s dictatorship instead. It fails to lift children out of hardship, not just damaging their long-term prospects, but those of society as a whole. Cuts to social care pile pressure on an NHS already buckling because of a funding squeeze, marketisation policies and an ageing population. Cut now, pay more later. We’ve seen that, vividly, on our TV screens this last week. There will be far more to come.