Hitler’s Luftwaffe couldn’t stop Britain from flying. But apparently the North Hyde Electricity substation at the end of Nestles Avenue could.
Many questions still remain over the closure of one of the planet’s busiest international airports and the global chaos it has precipitated. But a few things are already becoming clear.
The first is that our Government, under the steely stewardship of Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy, doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Literally. Asked how it was possible a single fire at a single electrical substation in Hayes, west London, could slam shut Britain’s gateway to the world, Miliband replied: ‘It’s too early to answer that question. We don’t know the cause of this fire. It’s obviously an unprecedented event.’
Too early? It may be too soon to ascertain the cause of the fire. But is asking the Energy Secretary to demonstrate a basic understanding of how major components of the British electricity grid actually work really too much to ask?
Heathrow’s main substation in Hayes, west London, exploded last night, shutting down Britain’s busiest airport for all of Friday
A second thing is also blatantly obvious. It’s now just over three weeks since the Prime Minister announced Britain was being placed on a ‘war footing’. Standing up in the House of Commons chamber, Sir Keir pulled himself up to full Churchillian height and solemnly intoned: ‘At moments like these in our past, Britain has stood up to be counted – it has come together, and it has demonstrated strength. That is what the security of our country needs now, and it is what this Government will deliver.’
Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Starmer? Whatever the cause of this blaze, Vladimir Putin now knows that if he wants to bring the country to its knees, all he has to do is send a single drone in the general direction of an electricity substation, and the Scottish and Southern Electricity company will do the rest.
Obviously, there is no such thing as a fool-proof system. But when it comes to resiliency planning, a power outage is hardly an unexpected ‘black swan’ event. How is it possible that a global infrastructure asset such as Heathrow does not have built-in power redundancy?
As the authorities struggle to get to grips with the unfolding mayhem, one thing more than any other is now apparent.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband needs to ensure heads roll – even if one of them is his own, writes Dan Hodges
The United Kingdom has become an international basket case. This is a global humiliation of the sort we thought had been consigned to the history books sometime in the late 1970s.
Major international airports don’t simply shut down for the day because of power cuts. It just doesn’t happen. The global disruption. The cost to the economy. The loss of international prestige.
Yet this reaction is typical of the authorities nowadays who, rather than working hard to come up with intelligent solutions, simply panic and close everything down – to the inconvenience of millions of people. There can be no excuse for this.
Ed Miliband has said an urgent investigation is under way into how this incident could possibly have happened.
Good. It needs to be far-reaching and thorough. And at the end of it, he is going to need to ensure that heads roll. Even if one of them is his own.