The recent bout of bad weather brought the country to a standstill. As the snow was piling up thousands of cars were abandoned, roads were became impassable, footpaths were left untreated, the NHS struggled to coup with a huge rise in weather related illnesses and accidents, thousands of schools closed, public transport and airport schedules were wrecked and an estimated 20% of the British workforce never actually made it into their place of work.

Why? Well there is an old saying that “attitude makes the world go around” and it certainly seems to have been a serious factor in allowing the country to grind to a halt.

We, the community, too readily concede to what we see as the inevitable shut down of normal life because of a bad spell of snow. The question is why should we accept that? It simply does not happen in countries such as Norway where huge amounts of snow are an annual event.

The usual stock answers have been pedalled and liberally used as excuses across the media by our Local Authorities and are designed to help them doggy paddle until the problem literally melts away. It’s not good enough is it?   

According to The Centre for Economic and Business Research and the Federation of Small Businesses one fifth of the workers failed to get into work. That is 6.5 million people at a cost of £900 million per day and could be responsible for 3000 businesses failing this year. The cost to businesses, families and the community is horrific in such circumstances and costs a lot more than a contingency plan with adequate salt and equipment would cost for all of the roads, including side streets and pavements.

Labour has proved over recent years that they prefer not to openly discuss or debate such issues or alter their ways. Instead, they are content to allow the business world to grind to a halt and put the local economy in jeopardy and the taxed to death communities with no gritting on their side streets and pathways.

A Norwegian was interviewed recently by a television presenter about their “amazing ability” to keep functioning every year and he was very proudly stating that he had never known a Norwegian airport to be closed by snow in the last 30 years. When he was asked what the secret was he replied “you have to spend money to make money”. Brilliant!

Now there’s food for thought!  If the Labour Ostriches took their heads out of the snow drifts and got more attitude…. of the right kind, then we could buy the equipment, stockpile the salt, have a plan, keep people working, protect the local economy and help the communities.

Attitude really does make the world go round – unless of course you are the incompetent Labour Government!

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