So unprepared is Britain for the annual onslaught of the same weather as this time last year that people are even convincing themselves that snow in January and storms in October are somehow new phenomena, no doubt to be attributed to Global Warming like everything else the weather does.

My parents could tell you about the winter of 1947, the floods of 1968 and the drought of 1976. The authorities were useless then and will no doubt continue to be useless indefinitely.