The Government has its heads in the holiday sands as temperatures rise again - Jayne Dowle

“Talking about the weather” used to be one of those polite English things we did when we found ourselves in conversation with strangers and could think of little else to say. Now it has become, sadly, a matter of life and death.

The devastating wildfires which sweep through parts of England in the middle of July, including here in Barnsley, where four houses were reduced to ashes as a blaze ignited in extreme temperatures, took with them family pets and livelihoods, businesses burning to the ground before massively over-stretched fire crews could reach them.

I’m never one to cry wolf but now we know exactly what level of devastation can occur when the mercury starts mercilessly to climb, I hope that we are prepared for the next extreme weather event. When I say “we”, I mean not just us, the people who struggle to keep themselves cool, our children, vulnerable relatives and animals safe and our homes and assets protected from the relentless march of all-consuming flames, but the Government.

Once again, I’m forced to ask – where are they? On top of the weather situation – and we’ve already got hosepipe bans in place for millions of homes across south-east and south-west England – we’re also facing shock financial predictions which threaten to send the UK economy into deep and imminent recession.

But Nadhim Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and still-PM Boris Johnson are both away from their desks. Have these two highly-senior and hugely-powerful politicians learned no lessons whatsoever from last August, when Dominic Raab, then Foreign Secretary, now apparently Deputy Prime Minister, was lying on a sun lounger in Crete when the Taliban retook Afghanistan and thousands of people, many British nationals amongst their number, found themselves stranded at their mercy?

Apparently, Zahawi is on a family holiday somewhere, but taking calls and doing emails, and Johnson has gone on a belated honeymoon to Slovenia, of all places. Given that he actually got married last year, and this trip follows the recent belated wedding party held at the Cotswolds home of super-rich Tory donor and JCB construction magnate Lord Bamford, it seems a luxury too far.

The UK needs visible leadership. “Families and pensioners are worried sick about how they’ll pay their bills, but the Prime Minister and Chancellor are missing in action,” says Shadow Treasury Minister Abena Oppong-Asare. “The fact they’re both on holiday on the day the Bank of England forecasts the longest recession in 30 years speaks volumes about the Tories’ warped priorities.”

This is proving a very difficult summer indeed for the country. It would be reassuring for the millions living in fear of wildfires, not just in the countryside, but also urban locations, including, yes, London, to know that all was being done from the very top to put emergency measures in place.

Rather, we find ourselves in an all-too familiar default position. The PM and his Cabinet put their heads in the sand and try to pretend any crisis or potential crisis, isn’t real, until it engulfs them and they are forced to act in haste, typically when it is too late to do or say anything meaningful.

And then, it’s over to us. We’ve seen it all before during the height of coronavirus lockdown in the spring and summer of 2020, when law-abiding people suddenly found themselves fined to the tune of thousands of pounds for inadvertently breaking the “rule of three” or was it “two” or “four”, who knows? Or stopping to drink a cup of coffee by the side of the road. And countless other minor infringements of undemocratically agreed and draconian rules that seemingly didn’t apply to those partying in Downing Street.

I’m sorry to remind you of all that, but as the PM and the Chancellor seem oblivious to the concerns of ordinary people, we’re all being asked to spy on each other. Again. In the event of a hosepipe ban, we’re actively urged to report our neighbours to water companies if they breach the rules. Just what we need; another issue to divide us rather than bring us together.

Obviously, it’s up to the water companies to set the guidelines, and not government ministers. However, this abnegation of any kind of public steer from Westminster once again reminds us that we’re on our own, in a very torrid landscape, with a very leaky bucket.