Wimpish Britain!
Credit to the Daily Mail for the cartoon and the Telegraph.co.uk for large parts of the article (see link).
Other countries have looked on with a mixture of puzzlement and glee as a small snow fall brought ‘Great’ Britain to its knees—largely due to the authorities pandering to their stupid Health and safety fears over accidents and lawsuits. What kind of message does it send to the kids? It fuels a 'sick note culture' and soft permissive society. Over-cautious, Politically Correct and bureaucratic Britain broadcasts its DECLINE as Ministers condone the closing of schools, the halting of all London bus transport and encourage people to stay at home when a little snow falls.
It is clear that not only is the ‘Home Office not fit for purpose’ as Dr John Reid pointed out in May 2006, but in my opinion, the whole of British Government is not fit for purpose and should be franchised out, to say Denmark.
Countries which regularly experience more inclement weather than the UK found it hard to believe that a few inches of snow could ground flights, halt trains, close schools and keep buses off the streets of London. "The nation that beat back the Blitz couldn't, it seems, cope with four inches of snow," reported the International Herald Tribune, noting that the worst storm to hit London in nearly 20 years had raised the "vexing question of why a predicted snowfall caught authorities so off-guard." Canada's Globe and Mail ran a picture on its front page of a cyclist pedalling past a row of red phone boxes covered in snow. "Britain blindsided by record snowfall," said the headline, above an article which explained how the snowfall had brought London to "an uncharacteristic halt." The Toronto daily quoted a fuming British commuter who was trying to make his way to work in the capital. "It's absolutely diabolical. It's like we're a Third World country," the man said.
On the other side of the world, the New Zealand Herald announced: "Snow brings London to a standstill," adding that although there were ample warnings of the bad weather, transport officials "failed to keep a semblance of normalcy in the city" when snow fell on Sunday and Monday. In Australia, The Age of Melbourne ran the headline "Freeze Britannia – blizzards bring London to a halt", with a photograph of Big Ben frosted with snow and ice. The paper's London correspondent reported that there was "widespread anger that, despite five days of severe weather warnings, London has been paralysed by the snow while other European cities deal with it as a matter of course." Continental Europe, which has experienced some of its heaviest winter snowfalls for years, was also aghast at how Britain was practically shut down by the weather. "The image of a country paralysed with snow has harmed the reputation of ‘Great’ Britain, underlined by a quarter of the country's employees not being able to go to work," wrote the French business newspaper Les Echos. The Italian daily La Stampa printed a picture of commuters forlornly tramping along a snow-covered bridge across the Thames and reported that disruption to airports had caused "misery" for tens of thousands of travellers. "All the European channels were showing images of London at a complete standstill, which was not a very positive image for the UK," David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, told the BBC's Today programme.
Foreign expatriates living in the UK, especially those of Nordic origin, were particularly scathing towards Britain's inability to deal with the blanket of snow. Describing herself as a "born and bred Viking", Swedish journalist Stina Backer, who also lives in London, asked how so little snow could cause so much chaos. "After listening to colleagues compare their commuter journeys like battle-scarred veterans, all I could think was, 'It's only water'." Backer, who has lived in Britain for eight years, wrote in The Independent. "As a Swede practised in these matters, I brought a change of clothes to work and planned my journey with military precision. And that is where we differ, us Scandinavians and you Brits: preparation and perseverance. We’re not WIMPS!"
