Kay Oliver: UK correspondent on Storm Bert tearing through Britain

Over in Britain, Storm Bert is lashing the region - bringing snow, wind, flooding and heavy rain.

Homes, schools and businesses were destroyed as a month's worth of rain hit England and Wales.

UK correspondent Kay Oliver says the storm has been responsible for four deaths - including a 75-year-old dog walker.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kay Oliver are UK correspondents with us. Now, Hey k
hello Heather. So how bad has Stormbird been in Well,
it's been an absolute catastrophic event for Wales particularly, and
the Welsh First Minister Eleanord Morgan has said the floods
have been absolutely devastating. There one hundred millimeters of rain
in places, falling so quickly at eighty percent of November's

(00:24):
annual rainfall in forty eight hours. We've had four hundred
flood warnings across the whole of the UK. Hundreds of
properties have been at risk of flooding. Three hundred properties
in Wales have flooded. The part of the problem there
is that Storm Dennis went into that area in twenty twenty.
There's been a lot of work going on to repair bridges,

(00:45):
roads etc. For the last four years and it seems
that all those repairs have also been washed away. We've
had four people killed, one being a dog walker, a
seventy five year old man out with his walking the dog.
Another man in his eighties was killed in Wheal when
he literally drove into a big body of water and
obviously he has drowned. And these are some of the

(01:07):
horror stories that have been going on here. It was
described as a catastrophic weather event. Three forces came together,
gale force winds, snow and rain, and it seems that
once again it's taken people by surprise and we have
had extreme flooding going on here. Hey, this petition, I
was just talking about this earlier on calling for a

(01:28):
general election. Is this the fastest growing petition thus far? Well,
I've been watching this one. It seems that people have
one hundred thousand signatures in one hour in one instance.
It has been put together by a business owner, Michael Westwood,
and he's basically saying there should be another general election
in this country because of the what he is calling

(01:53):
basically the failure to deliver on promises that were made
that didn't turn out to be anything alike what was
going to come in reality. So he wants another general election.
We've got a million of signatures so far. It does
seem that this is even more kind of mud slinging
at labor. We've obviously got discontent here about the winter

(02:15):
fuel allowance. You've got the farmers over the inheritance tax.
There are so many things that haven't gone well for labor,
and this gentleman has basically said, let's start again. Let's
see if we can get another general election. I doubt
it very much. But the former Tory leadership contender, Robert
Jenrick has also said that no one is ever going

(02:36):
to trust labor again. And there are an awful lot
of people here are saying what next? What else are
they going to come up with? Yeah? Fair enough, Okay,
Now what is going on with this sister dying vote?
Ree ky Istama? Has he said which way he's going
to vote? Or no? No? Apparently he has not disclosed
the way he is going to vote because he doesn't

(02:56):
want to. Should we say, convinced persuade other MPs in
what is going to be a free vote on Friday? Now?
People are basically they've been polled in this country. Two
thirds of the general public are in favor of assisted dying,
of this bill, which would allow a terminally ill person

(03:18):
with six months or less to live to apply to
two doctors and a High Court judge for permission to
take their own life. But we've had people like the
Justice Secretary Whijam and but Mamood come out and say
that this is a slippery slope and that the state
doesn't provide people with death, so there's a lot of

(03:39):
controversy about this. Terminally ill people obviously are saying they
want this bill to go ahead. One of the conversations
was with a TV presenter here, Esther Ranson, who is
terminally ill with lung cancer, who had a lot of
discussions with Keir Starmer and it would seem at one
point that he was going to vote in favor of this.
So we wait to see on Friday how this one

(04:01):
is going to play out, Heather, interesting stuff, Kay, thanks
very much, appreciate it this Kay Oliver our UK correspondents.
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