Flooding: Does the government realise they're in charge?

I've been watching with increasing incredulity the lacklustre Downing Street response to the flooding. As homes, businesses, roads and railtracks are swamped in water and people's lives are ruined, why does the government twiddle it's thumbs?

We have a really peculiar centralised state in the United Kingdom whereby the majority of taxation and decision making is withheld by central government. Local authorities and emergency services have had higher levels of cuts than government departments. Local authorities are criticised and bemoaned for raising council tax by Westminster. Thus the real arbiters of power, decision making,  borrowing and funding are still where they've always been 10 and 11 Downing Street. Yet there are floods everywhere and who do we see time and again dealing with them? local authorities and emergency services, not the powerful and well funded Whitehall offices.

The government's response in general has been shoddy.  Lots of talk of meetings by the excitingly named COBRA. But what has resulted from Cabinet Office Briefing Room A? Obviously an abundance of melodrama and a sense of self importance that could easily rival The West Wing. But like that great series it's meaningless when the cameras go off everyone goes home.  Well that's not entirely fair, both David Cameron and Owen Paterson have donned wellies in an attempt to be seen to do something. Bringing the spiel and platitudes of a briefing room to our tv sets.

Floods are a long term problem, clearing gullies and dredging may work here and there but the problem is much deeper. The obvious point to make is to reverse cuts to the Environment Agency and realise the environment is actually important. But there also needs to be a fundamental shift, government in London is about PR, meetings and keeping up appearances. It's inflexible, prone to inaction and makes Ed Miliband look positively decisive.  The sharp end of public services is local government and the emergency services. Government needs to readdress their priorities and put funding where it makes a difference to people's homes, businesses, communities and lives. Let's put the front line of public services first for once!