Why politicians secretly love the Environment Agency

‘I’ve kept my counsel up to now,’ said Chris Smith, loftily, when he appeared on the Today programme. Perhaps by the end of the interview, in which he managed to distance himself from previous policy pronouncements while defending his staff to the hilt, he wished he’d kept his counsel too. Those opening words suggested that the Environment Agency chief was about to unleash some terrible truth against the politicians taking aim at him, when in fact all he could tell listeners was that it was the Treasury’s fault… sort of.

‘I have to say I’ve kept my counsel up to now about issues like government rules about what the Environment Agency can spend and what it can’t spend. But when I hear someone criticising the expertise and the professionalism of my staff in the Environment Agency who know more about flood risk management – 100 times more about flood management than any politician ever does, I’m afraid I’m not going to sit idly by.