K But it didn't help Gordon Brown's claims to competence in a crisis. Instead, the news bulletins were filled with moaning Brits complaining of the chaos they faced in getting home and blaming inaction by the Government. Brown had promised 100 coaches would pick up stranded Brits in Spain, and that the Navy would come to the rescue. Instead many were left to make their own way home, after too few coaches turned up, and the Navy vessel left port without them because it was filled with troops returning from Afghanistan. So much for the Dunkirk spirit. It put the spotlight for the first time on Lord Adonis, the brainy Transport Secretary, who can't sound his 'rs'. Adonis has had a glittering rise to the Cabinet. He was first spotted by the Blairites as the brilliant policy editor for the Financial Times and then the Observer. Living in Islington, he was regarded by the Blairites as 'one of us', except for the inconvenient fact that was a Liberal Democrat. He switched to New Labour before the 1997 election, and was brought into the Blair administration as a Downing Street policy adviser before being made a minister with a peerage in the Lords. The only problem is that all those brains don't guarantee commonsense. On Sunday, Adonis had stood on the steps of Downing Street with another co-opted member of the Brown Government who has not stood for election for years - Lord Mandelson - to announce that the ban on air traffic in Britain would have to stay indefinitely while the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano continued to pose a threat to aircraft. Britain's airline bosses understandably went bonkers at that news because they were losing millions of pounds. Then BA chief executive Willie Walsh, in what appears to be an amazing act of brinkmanship, decided to force the issue by sending Transatlantic flights to London yesterday before the ban was lifted. Adonis, astonishingly, said he had heard about the BA flights by watching the news on the television. The polls suggest we are still odds-on to get a hung Parliament with Lib Dems sharing power. It's unfortunate for those who support this outcome that the best example of a Lib-Lab minister in action is Lord Adonis. The sight of Adonis 'at the wescue' is unlikely to inspire the voters after this debacle. Will David Cameron - who got a boost last night from a new ComRes poll suggesting he has regained a nine-point lead over both the Lib Dems and Labour – be thanking Lord Adonis for helping him squeeze a majority on May 6? Planes have been landing and taking off from British airports for the first time in six days after the blanket ban on flights - introduced because of the risks to jet engines from a cloud of volcano ash - was suddenly dropped last night. Airlines now face a huge logistical problem as they try to repatriate tens of thousands of Britons still stranded abroad, and get planes and crews dotted around the world back on schedule. It could be weeks before normal service is resumed. BAA, which operates the majority of Britain's airports, says people should contact their airlines before travelling to an airport and expecting their flight to take off on time. The ban was lifted after increasing pressure from airlines, many of which had conducted their own tests and found no evident damage caused by particles from the volcanic ash. In what appears now to have been an act of brinkmanship, Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways, ordered long-haul flights to take off from Canada and other countries and head for London, even before the ban was lifted. Pilots were initially told they could not land at Heathrow or Gatwick but then the air traffic control body Nats, which had been overseeing the six-day ban, apparently caved in. Walsh said: "I don't believe it was necessary to impose a blanket ban on all UK airspace last Thursday. My personal belief is that we could have safely continued operating for a period of time." Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, denied having bowed to pressure from the airlines. "They have wanted to be able to fly their planes - of course they have - but that has not been the issue at stake here," he told Newsnight. "Having to assess safe levels of ash content in the atmosphere within which planes can fly has been an urgent issue which the safety authorities have had to deal with. That's what's changed - it's not been pressure from the industry." But the Conservatives' shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers demanded an inquiry into what she described as a "fiasco". "Six days into the crisis, we're suddenly told that there are actually levels of ash which are compatible with safe flying," she said. "The question angry passengers and airlines are already asking is why the Government hadn't worked this out before the crisis occurred." It was unclear last night whether a reported second cloud of volcanic ash had dissipated or was simply being ignored in the sudden eagerness to get Britain's airlines moving again. The Eyjafjallajoekull volcano is reportedly still spewing ash and lava, but at a diminished rate. Adonis -
fine example of a Lib-Lab minister in action!
The Mole: How the Transport Secretary was forced into action by wily Willie Walsh
UK airports running again after BA forces the issue
BA chief Willie Walsh orders long-haul flights to head for home - and only then gets permission to land
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
LAST UPDATED 7:37 AM, APRIL 21, 2010
wipes. Transport Secretary Lord Adonis performed a spectacular U-turn last night to lift the blanket ban on all flights to and from London airports. His 10pm announcement caught everyone off-guard, and knocked the rise of Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg off the top spot in news bulletins.
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LAST UPDATED 8:07 AM, APRIL 21, 2010
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