Peter Rhodes on snow, small boats and the risks of all-electric living
A breathless dispatch on Radio 4 told how eager volunteers were on their way to deliver food, kindling and suchlike winter provisions to people living in isolated houses in the frozen countryside. I couldn't help wondering whether their mercy missions should he heading in the other direction.
By and large, those of us living out in the sticks tend to prepare for winter. We have stoves, logpiles, propane cylinders, open grates, camping cookers, occasional wells and more kindling than you can, er, shake a stick at.
My sympathy goes to those poor devils living in all-electric modern apartments in towns and cities with not even a chimney or fireplace. Once the power cuts strike, such homes quickly turn into fridges and your only option is a hotel, rescue centre or the charity of friends.
One hero of the on-off blizzards was Phil Mackie, veteran BBC News correspondent in the Midlands. He was dispatched to Malvern in search of drifts and, finding not a flake of snow in the town, filled his allotted minutes with a most informative description of how very snowy Malvern would be if a lot of snow were suddenly to fall. No hesitation, deviation, repetition or panic. A masterclass.
Only a few days ago in a New Year column, Douglas Murray, author of The Strange Death of Europe, issued this bleak warning on mass migration for the New Year: “While you may have open borders and a welfare state, you cannot long have both.” He's right. With net migration over 700,000 a year, small boats arriving every day and many of the new arrivals having complex health problems, the National Health Service is expected to be the World Health Service. No wonder it's in trouble.
Meanwhile, a deeply puzzling opinion-poll response comes in a poll of 1,144 British adults. Asked: “Should there be more or less immigrants coming to the UK?” 62 per cent say “less” and 11 per cent say “more.” And it seems nobody says: “You don't mean less, you mean fewer.” They must have carried out this poll when all the pedants were on holiday.
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