Mal Fletcher comments

Mal Fletcher

In today's Britain, innovation and initiative are often held hostage by rule-keeping and a fear of failure.

The inventive pioneer spirit that drove the great British entrepreneurs and social reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has often been replaced in both business and public services by an insidious culture of timidity.

Britain's current cold snap, which is now predicted to last well into next week, has brought this mentality to the fore, revealing a slowness to innovate except where there is a rule to cover every contingency.

In the past two weeks, temperatures have plummeted to -18°C in parts of England - and -21°C in Scotland - and snow has covered much of the north and east. This week, even where some of the snow has melted, ice, fog and heavy frosts have taken its place as temperatures remain unusually low.

Since winter began, 1400 flights have been cancelled and 150,000 tons of snow had been cleared from runways at Gatwick airport alone.

Meanwhile, 29 percent of trains have been cancelled and another 44 percent have run late. Seven thousand schools have closed and 500 petrol stations have run low on fuel.

Incredibly, 60 banks have actually run out of money. In all, the cost to the economy has been an estimated £1.2 billion per day.

The question is, why? After the public uproar that followed a poor official response to last year's wintery blast, many people are asking why the authorities apparently learned so little and have failed again to cover the contingencies.

It's a fair question. My family and I lived in Denmark for almost a decade. We regularly saw temperatures plummet to zero or below at the height of winter.

That said, Denmark has far less snow than any of its Nordic neighbours and its winter is milder. For Danes, as for Brits, a white Christmas is a novelty.

When the weather there takes an especially icy turn, people will complain that services are not up to their usual high standards. Yet for the most part, local authorities respond quickly and services continue to operate, if with some slight (only slight) delays.

Roads remain open, no banks are short of cash and schools function rather well.

In parts of Britain, even in highly populated areas, life seems to come almost to a standstill when Old Man Winter decides to behave badly.

The problem is partly the result of a general mindset, one that runs deep within sections of British business, government and public services, and perhaps the wider culture.