Slow Government Response To Ash Cloud But The Navy Is Here

The defining memory of the Brown government is likely to be delay and lack of action until the Daily Mail starts to complain about things. There never seems to be much preparedness for problems or emergencies.

The Icelandic ash cloud led to a complete shutdown of UK airspace on Thursday lunchtime and it has been closed ever since. It wasn’t as though nobody knew about it or noticed the result of this action since it was all over the news and there were interviews and yet more interviews with UK citizens who were stuck in airports hoping to get home as soon as possible.

I accept that there was not a lot the government could do to make the cloud go away and for flights to begin again but all those Britons scattered around the world were steadily becoming more desperate as they ran out of money after spending days living at airports around the world.

Finally we are now seeing some government action. The British government’s emergency planning committee, Cobra has finally met after 5 days. It’s a good job the fire brigade and police don’t wait for 5 days to decide if something is an emergency.

As a result of meetings the Navy is to send ships to unspecified French ports and one ship is en-route to Spain to collect army personnel stuck on their way home from Afghanistan. Spain to help find a way to get some of these people home.  I’m just puzzled that it has taken so long for this to happen.

Weather forecasters have been suggesting the weather conditions were such that the current situation could last for some time over the last few days and so it has proved to be. It could be that the weather will change and the cloud of ash will be blown away sooner rather than later but it would have done no harm for Cobra to have met last week instead of this and to make some contingency plans for dealing with the trapped passengers at the airports.

Volcano Ash Cloud Is Having Quite An Impact On Europe And The World

I have no doubt that there are conspiracy theorists working away right now in the belief that the invisible volcanic ash cloud from Iceland is non-existent and this is really some global, or European, conspiracy to test out plans to totally restrict and control the free movement of people around Europe. It is interesting how the cloud seems to have pretty much covered Europe but not so much anywhere else but I am prepared to accept it is all genuine and the ban on aircraft flights is for the right reasons.

There is little doubt it is causing chaos in all the countries affected and that is not just the ones where the cloud hovers menacingly in the air. There are travellers trapped air-side in airports all over the world who are on route to Europe but having been forced to land short of their destination do not have the correct papers to leave the airport of the country they arrived in. It must be a pretty miserable experience and presumably there are people who are due to return home but can’t and they are having to somehow survive in foreign countries having run out of money. My thoughts go out to them but it will be something to tell their grandchildren one day. These are historic events.

I suspect a lot of schools will restart after the Easter break and find they are short of both teachers and pupils who have been marooned in the places they took a short vacation. Apparently the cabinet are meeting this afternoon to discus matters relating to the ash cloud and I am sure there must be a lot of people spread all over Europe and the world who could do with some physical and financial support. Hopefully ministers can stop electioneering long enough to make sure there is support available for those who need it.

Finally, on the subject of the ash cloud. What if this were to reoccur in 2012 around the time the Olympics were to due to take place in London? It could mean half empty stadiums and a lot of absent athletes. I wonder if there is a contingency plan to postpone the event if some natural disaster was to occur or would it just mean that Britain would win a whole heap of gold medals because nobody else could make it? Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say.