More floods are coming to Britain, but you ought to know this: the system that should protect us is a scandal | George Monbiot

A network of public bodies are supposed to safeguard us from flooding. But, like old boys' clubs, they are bastions of self-interest

Labour's first stage of government resembles a vast forensic excavation. As it works through the Conservatives' midden of horrors, it discovers an ever greater legacy of underinvestment, neglect and corruption. However disappointing the new government's compromises might be, we shouldn't forget how overwhelming this task must feel.

So I'm sorry to expose yet another toxic stratum. It contains a series of stupendous failures in the governance of rural bodies, which, in the case I want to discuss, put human lives at risk.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist