I recently drove across France and experienced not one single traffic jam or road closure. The second I arrived back on the UK the heavens opened and the M25 ground to a halt.
Yesterday I was travelling again and an 8 hour journey in the UK took 15. Now, it is a bank holiday weekend but even so this is ridiculous.
Today I wake to the news that BA can’t organise a computer system, and is cancelling flights. Meanwhile the government, which owns the bankrupt rail system in all but name, is questioning whether trains need to supply their passengers with wifi.
Which, given the costs of rail travel undermines the major reason for paying so much, you can relax and work or play on the train.
It all reminds me of the cone hotline and the dog days of John Major’s administration.
Nothing works as it should, lack of investment, lack of money, salami slicing, too few skills and inadequate capacity in a dozen areas.
Just think about a simple example.
If there are hour long queues every day to get over the Dartford crossing, this is not just an annoying fact of life. There is something wrong with the Dartford crossing that is costing every driver, delaying every delivery, reducing productivity and damaging the economy.
Almost 1/3 of the productivity gap between the UK and France is due to a lack of infrastructure.
It is really that simple.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
I'm not sure that you're comparing like with like. France is more than 2.5 times the size of the UK and the populations are similar meaning UK population density is much greater. Furthermore, when you returned from France, you arrived in the area of the UK (the Southeast) with the highest population density. A more nuanced comparison would be a journey from Orly to CdeG to Versailles.