What goes wrong on holiday can be as memorable for children as what goes right, and not necessarily in a bad way. I well remember how we ran out of petrol on a German autobahn from Berlin in the days of the cold war, or the day the accelerator pedal got stuck as we drove through villages in Slovenia (it all ended well).
And there will doubtless be children today who will recall for many a year the 14 hours their family car was stuck in a traffic jam on the approach to Dover. They may also remember being plied (eventually) with board games and bottled water by volunteers more used to ministering to refugees. Whether memories of a new “Dunkirk spirit” and spontaneous beach volleyball on the verges of the M20 will blot out the discomfort and the frustration, however, is another matter.
For adults looking for reasons, whether immobilised en route to the Channel or not, there was an obvious answer. “The French” had decided to “punish” the Brits for voting for Brexit. “You want tougher border controls,” social media arguments went, “well, we’ve got some.”
In theory, of course, such an explanation falls apart: there have always been border controls between the UK and France, because the UK never signed up to Schengen. So, for all the talk by the leave campaign of “taking back control”, the vote should make no difference to the status or policing of borders.
And yet, and yet… if you were sitting in Paris, with responsibility for ensuring the extended state of emergency following the Bastille Day atrocity in Nice, a shortage of police and security services to enforce it across mainland France, and the start of the continental holiday season thinning out staff still further, where would you choose to economise? The decision would not have to be malevolent, it could be entirely practical. But any redistribution of staff was bound to affect the surge in France-bound Channel traffic as the UK school holidays began.
It appears to have been this conjunction of forces that created the apocalyptic jams this past weekend. Today, though, the French suggested any blame needed to be shared. Where were the police? asked a French spokesman. The UK authorities knew it would be one of the busiest and hottest weekends of the year, why were contingencies not in place, given the potential risks to the very young, the very old and the ill?
This may not be the whole question, but it is a question. British ability to anticipate such emergencies in the past has left much to be desired. This same weekend last year, the M2 and M20 became gigantic lorry parks as a result of strikes and additional security measures designed to deter migrants on the French side.
Given that any failings on the British side reflect poorly on planning, primarily at the Home Office, and given the reputation of the ex-home secretary, now prime minister, for competence, there is some domestic political capital at stake here. Fortunately for Theresa May, parliament is already in recess.
