Snow and the Authorities.

We begin to get the picture. The authorities are only partly prepared for snow. They can cope if it is not too bad. When it gets for real, the complexity and inter-dependence of the transport infrastructure, which has cost countless £billions to set up, is not matched by investment in a means of keeping it running in bad weather. Let’s get Norman Foster to design a lovely terminal, but not waste money on snow blowers and deicers. The incompetence of BAA is matched only by the stupidity of the comments of its spokespeople and the ineptitude of the airlines who use its airport to respond to the humiliating farce now unfolding.

Several things about our modern society have come to light. Little things like too many people go out on the roads when they do not know how to drive in snow. Big things like a management system which relies on due process, procedures and manuals, screws up big time when trying to cope with the out of the ordinary. 

There is something even bigger. The modern State is too active busy bodying every detail of the way individuals conduct their lives, whilst utterly feckless in many responsibilities for which it actually exists. It has a duty to defend the realm, uphold the law and dispense fair justice. It is also required to maintain in working order public utilities such as water, power, transport and environmental infrastructures come hell or high water, rain or shine, drought or freeze.  Clearly it is no longer able to do all of this.

Time for a rethink. And not just about likely weather patterns.