WHENEVER we were enjoying a spell of fine weather, my granddad, a Leeds newsagent, would say: “We’ll pay for this – you’ll see.” He knew what he was talking about. Every morning, from 1911 until 1955 he got out of bed at 4am, walked to the bridge in Armley Road, picked up his papers then set off with two full bags around his shoulders on his four-mile delivery round.

He did the same thing at teatime with the Evening Post and the Evening News. All weathers. Everyone knew my granddad, Jim Priestley, because he used to sing on his round: “It’s a long way to Tipperary” and a melancholy ballad, “Poor little Joe, out in the snow” – which he often was.

Jim had this idea that the weather has a way of evening itself out and I’ve noticed he was right. Last year, for example, the first 11 months produced only 11 inches of rain where I live in the South East of England.

Usually there are about 25 inches of rain in the year.

So, according to Jim’s reckoning, we’ve certainly been paying for it: since December 1, we’ve had 20 inches of rain.

Predictably, all the pundits and know-alls are chuntering on about climate change. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s nothing new.

The weather is always changing – it’s what the weather does.

In the 19th Century, there was a succession of cold winters recorded by Charles Dickens in his novels. It was called the Little Ice Age and the weather was so cold that the Thames froze over and they held markets and fairs on the ice.

In the 17th Century, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary a January so warm that summer flowers were in bloom and the bees and flies were everywhere.

The antidote to all this apocalyptic drivel about dramatic changes in the climate is simply to have lived long enough to remember a few of these great variations oneself. I have.

I was five in the deep winter of 1947 when the snow was piled so high in the Armley streets that I couldn’t see over the top of the coalman’s lorry tracks. The ice hung around until April.

I recall the coldest winter of the 20th Century – 1963 – when the temperature went below zero on Boxing Day and didn’t come above freezing until mid-March.

At the other extreme, I remember the terrific heat and drought of 1976 when the trees were dying for lack of moisture.

There was an outbreak of black humour at the time. On Any Questions the specially-appointed Minister for Drought spoke about “When it rains.” Enoch Powell was on the panel and said: “Doesn’t the Minister mean if?”

Back in our February fill-dyke, hearts go out to the poor devils in Somerset and other parts of the South West. Worse than the weather by far is the behaviour of the politicians in general and David Cameron and Ed Miliband, in particular.

The way they abused Prime Minister’s Questions last week callously to score political points off each other on the subject of the floods was truly shameful.

No wonder the latest survey into attitudes towards those in public life shows that almost a third of the population thinks the moral conduct of our MPs “poor or very poor”. I’m surprised it’s only a third. Most of them are cynical and self-seeking with only the pretence of caring for those they were elected to serve.

When it comes to the dripping of our politicians, it never rains but it pours.