Wednesday 21 April 2010

Ashes To Ashes

…  at least it wasn’t “Burn Baby Burn

Firstly a confession, i shouldn’t be writing this.  I should be in a restaurant in Malta having something nice to eat possibly watching the sun set.  You can understand that I am mightily peed off with the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, even if the eruption itself was not classed as a hugely violent eruption.

Even more worrying though was the slow nature of the response to this bout of volcanic activity from the authorities.  If there is to be an enquiry, as has been called for chiefly by Theresa Villiers (the shadow Transport Secretary), there are several questions to be answered.

1) Why was there no scientific flights from Thursday taking air samples to determine the density of ash in the air?

2) Why did test flights not take place until the Sunday after the initial lockdown of North-west European airspace?

3) Why was no plan put into place to get stranded people home by other means until Sunday, and why did no Cabinet meeting take place on the subject until Sunday?

4) Why did the Transport Minister Andrew Adonis insist that alternative transport arrangements were in place for stranded British people in Spain, when this claim is at odds with other testimony?
There is no doubt that the British government was slow to react to this incident.  Luckily though the eruption is not as serious as could have been the case.  Unfortunately a lot of people will be out of pocket because of 3 days of inaction.

Thankfuly this

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