In a development that has shocked even the most jaded of continental breakfast enthusiasts, a plane carrying skydivers has crashed in eastern France, killing eleven souls. The aircraft, a twin-engine machine of presumably Gallic temperament, apparently decided that gravity was an appointment it simply could not miss. Witnesses report a gentle hum, a sudden silence, then a plume of smoke that might have been mistaken for an unusually aggressive crème brûlée.
But here, in the grey, damp sanctuary of our sceptred isle, the response has been nothing short of magnificent. Our aviation safety record, that hallowed scroll of bureaucratic achievement, has been reaffirmed with the kind of vigour usually reserved for royal weddings and the discovery of a new variety of potato. The Department for Transport, never one to let a tragedy get in the way of a good press release, immediately issued a statement: "The UK aviation industry maintains the highest standards of safety, a fact that remains utterly unchanged by this unfortunate incident in a foreign land."
One can almost picture the civil servants polishing their lapel badges, exchanging knowing nods over lukewarm tea. Yes, a plane crashed in France. Yes, eleven people are dead. But let us not forget: our airports have excellent signage. Our cabin crew are rigorously polite. And our safety record is so pristine that it almost glows in the dark, a beacon of competency in a benighted world.
Of course, the French are devastated. They always are. But they lack our stiff upper lip, our national genius for turning a blind eye to anything that might ruffle the feathers of our carefully manufactured complacency. Let them weep over their baguettes and their lost sons and daughters. We shall retreat to our armchairs, pour a stiff gin, and consider the statistical unlikelihood of being struck by a falling skydiver in Guildford.
This is not to mock the dead. They deserve better than my ink and your idle curiosity. But the official response offers a perfect microcosm of the British psyche: a tragedy is not a tragedy unless it happens to us. And even then, it is merely a temporary inconvenience on the road to the next bank holiday. The eleven who fell have become footnotes in a press release, casualties of a reality the British government simply refuses to acknowledge.
But I digress. The skydivers were probably having a lovely day. They jumped, presumably, as they had hundreds of times before, trusting in a machine and its Gallic engineering. Now they are with the angels, or at least in some French morgue. And back in Blighty, the civil service types are polishing their glasses, readying the next platitude. Because nothing, not even a mass grave of thrill-seekers, can undermine the sanctity of our transport safety statistics.
So raise a glass, if you must, to the eleven. And another to the British civil servant who, even now, is drafting a memo on the importance of 'robust crisis communication strategies.' The bureaucracy never sleeps. And neither does the bullshit.
