The Boris Johnson-shaped hole in the wake of devastating flooding will come back to haunt the Tories

The shadow secretary of state for the environment, Luke Pollard, says that Boris Johnson’s refusal to visit areas hit by the flooding is a “disgrace”. So it is, and it betrays a certain detachment from the concerns of the communities where five people have died over the weekend, and hundreds were evacuated from their homes.

For people to have lost treasured possessions, and, on some cases, had their homes wrecked by the waters for the second or third time in a few years, the prime minister’s assurance that is monitoring developments from the safety and comfort of a country pile in Kent may be thin recompense.

If this is the “people’s government”, it certainly doesn’t act like one. It is, indeed, so aloof an attitude that it seems out of character for even this prime minister, who usually makes a token effort to turn up and look concerned, even when he is not. It is also odd, given the number of votes there are currently underwater. They may not rise to the surface when Mr Johnson next asks them to be “lent” to him at the next general election. Even allowing for the way he was heckled mercilessly when he visited in Yorkshire during the previous inundation last November, it is perplexing behaviour.