The temperature hit 40 degrees Celsius in London yesterday. That is not news. What is news is that this was not a freak anomaly. It is the third such wave in two years, and people are starting to ask why a continent famed for its mild climate is suddenly tropical. More importantly, they are asking who is in charge. The current heatwave, which has seen France, Germany and Spain sweltering, has laid bare a troubling European reality: no-one has a proper plan. Not the British government, not the EU, not the local authorities. And when the state fails, the people pay.
I spoke to a woman in a housing estate in East London. She had no air conditioning, no fan, no garden. She had a wet towel on her head and a neighbour’s baby she was trying to keep cool. “They say drink water,” she said, “but what do we do at night? It’s 30 degrees at midnight. The kids can’t sleep. It’s like living in a sauna.” That is the human cost. It is not about the flights or the trains. It is about the fact that whole swathes of the population, especially the elderly and the poor, are being left to bake in their own homes.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, officials are scrambling. The European Commission has called for a ‘European Heatwave Preparedness Plan’ - essentially admitting that none exists. The irony is that we have plans for just about everything else. We have trade deals, tariffs, data protection and fishing quotas. But when the mercury rises, we have nothing. Britain, still navigating its post-Brexit identity, is no better. The NHS is overwhelmed. Hospitals are cancelling non-urgent surgeries. Ambulances are waiting outside A&E because there are no beds. And the weather shows no sign of relenting.
The cultural shift is palpable. In Spain, siestas have become longer. In France, schools are closing early. In Britain, we are adapting in our typical way: buying more ice cream and making jokes about how we’re not built for this. But underneath the banter is a quiet anxiety. People are starting to see this as the new normal. And they are voting with their feet. Sales of portable air conditioners are up 200% this month. Garden centres are selling out of parasols. The class dynamics are clear: if you have money, you can cool your home. If you don’t, you bake.
What is interesting is the psychological effect. Heat makes people irritable. There have been more fights on the Tube, more road rage, more petty arguments. It is not just the weather. It is the stress of feeling that things are broken. People look at the politicians and see them sweating on TV, promising action, but everyone knows that the next heatwave will come and it will be the same. The EU is unprepared. Britain is unprepared. The world is unprepared. And the people are left to cope alone.
This is not a story about climate change. That is too abstract. This is a story about a European summer where the sun became an enemy. Where we realised that our infrastructure was built for a world that no longer exists. Where the most vulnerable were left to sweat it out. The allies of Britain are indeed sweating, but not just from the heat. They are sweating from the knowledge that no-one is coming to save them.
