What is going on at Dover and chunnel?

Following the Nice attacks (hope your speech software pronounces that properly) France is back on state of emergency, so enhanced border checks combined with the start of the school holidays in many parts of the country.

Little risk from white, aethiest or Christian families going on holiday, but profiling is a dirty word.

...and it just said on the radio, only one French border control booth is currently manned due to staff shortages.

Yes, plus the French government didn't appreciate the way their interior minister was booed during his visit to Nice a few days ago. They got the clear message they need to do more. That's what they're doing now.

I believe the coastguard are helping. It is water, after all.

And it wouldn't be like a french workforce to work-to-rule, especially if it's les rosbifs that suffer, eh?

so we check all the Brits to the nth degree whilst Spanish, Italian and Belgian terrorists can just walk across the border

tim

are you sure about that?

Not long ago I did that drive on a daily basis

I knew all of the back routes to take when the queue for the port was a little bit congested.

But the current situation is just nuts, it would be no work for me tomorrow, if I still went there. I wonder how many of them actually manage to get in

tim

No, but there was talk about checkpoints being undermanned, it could be that nobody wanted the overtime, but it's not août yet ...

It probably is actually, given they have to be there anyway to maintain public order, and it would cost a lot more and cause more disruption if someone is taken ill and has to have an ambulance, or abandons their vehicle and causes a further obstruction.

Owain

Its odd how the French can be short of manpower when they want to be.

I remember the VCR import job the French had.. all VCRs imported into France had to be unpacked, inspected and repacked by one man.

What is to stop the lorries getting on a ship for another port even to anot her country apart from the fact that wen the wheels are turning the diesel is burning?

I imagine the economy of the port could rapidly become refugee-based as the local transportation system fails and the refugee system trickles down as they start walking to the port of new business.

This is the economy of democracy as an example take the TSR-2. Every few ye ars the headship oversight of the RAF changes. the new brooms always came u p with unreasonable ideas as the new age of the jet developed.

They wanted faster and faster interceptors eventually ordering a fighter th at could go fast enough to wear its skin off. A titanium skin was expensive but increasing, the fuel capacity was nowhere near such a low cost VFM to solve.

The costs involved by the time the new government stepped in could have got Britain into moon launches ahead of the Russians. Eventually we ended up w ith a fast plane that didn't do what it was developed for and now way off t he roundabout.

"The TSR-2 was the victim of ever-rising costs and inter-service squabbling over Britain's future defence needs, which led to the controversial decisi on to scrap the programme in 1965. With the election of a new government, t he TSR-2 was cancelled due to rising costs, in favour of purchasing an adap ted version of the General Dynamics F-111, a decision that itself was later rescinded as costs and development times increased."

It was the Plague of Thebes where the only way to stop robbing Peter to pay Paul was for Paul and Peter to kill one another. Leaving Europe to stall t he cash crisis of the Euro, only opened the way for Scotland and Ireland to vote to leave Britain. None of which options changes the original economic problem.

The basic problem is that s*it is out of control.

I thoght there were two of them ;-)

Once we leave it will be routine so get used to it.

And the VCR approval process, which stalled until you built a factory in France!

France reintroduced border controls across the country on 13th November

No problem. All French lorries with perishable goods will be stalled at Dover. See how long that takes for French farmers to solve the problem!

so they are stopping people at customs posts at the border are they?

including all the new built roads where there are no facilities for doing so

tim