The Absolute Incompetence of Our Government

It is difficult to know who pissed me off the most when I was trapped in Japan: the airline, who were total cunts; the people who sold us the bus tickets, who underestimated the duration of the journey by 24 hours; the Danes on the bus who showed themselves to be complete and total selfish wankers; hell, there is no shortage of potential candidates. But I think the people who pissed me off the most were the British government.

Don't get me wrong, I had minimal interactions with the government while I was away. The only things I did was to have a brief conversation with the British embassy in Japan, and then ignore the advice on offer from the government via the media. But the government's behaviour during the course of this crisis has been both shameful and utterly incompetent. Put very simply, the government do not give a flying fuck about its own citizens.

Let's look at the evidence. Initially, as this arsing volcano began to pump disruptive ash into the sky, the government acted quickly - by closing British air space. But they never seemed to stop and consider what this would mean for British people who were trapped abroad. In fact, the government was so apathetic towards those who couldn't get home that all the embassies closed over the weekend. People were trapped abroad, living in airports, with no real way of reaching the government that is supposed to represent them and their interests.

It might not sound like much - having to stay in an airport - but then you have to factor in that many people in those airports did not have the money to pay to eat. Or wash. People also had limited medication for conditions like epilepsy, diabetes and asthma. The longer people have to stay in an airport, the more likely it is that people would get ill. And possibly very ill. But the government didn't seem to do anything until Monday/Tuesday. They didn't seem to stop and think of the implications of people being stranded. They really did not seem to care.

But in the end they did seem to come up with a plan. They told everyone to go to Spain, where they would be rescued by the Navy. Of course, those with no money couldn't afford to travel to Spain, and for those in countries like, say, Japan, there is no direct flight to Spain. But it turned out to be irrelevant anyway, because the government had no intention of getting the Navy out to Spain. CNN was reporting on Wednesday evening that the government instead was busing people, fifty at a time, to Calais.

And then the plan changed again. Everyone now had to get themselves to Calais. Where they... could wait for a ferry. And from the stories I was getting on Thursday, that could be a long wait. Stories were circulating of duvets and blankets being handed out in Calais, because there was no way of getting the sheer number of people needing to get back in reasonable time. The government fucked the people who got to Spain, and who got to Calais. And it also created chaos in both Northern Spain and Calais, by offering advice without thinking about what impact that advice would have. It shafted those stranded abroad and in doing so, it shafted France and Spain. A magnificently shitty piece of work from a government who have come to almost define incompetence.

Thomas Hobbes said that the only reason why we should give power to a sovereign/government is if that sovereign/government can guarantee our security. The government over the past week has shown just how little it cared for the security and the well-being of a great many of its citizens stranded abroad. Now Hobbes was quite clear on what should happen if a sovereign/government ceased to look after its people - it should be replaced. So let's remember this government's cack-handed and indifferent treatment of those people stranded abroad by a natural disaster, and let's work together to ensure that this piss awful government is replaced once and for all.