Operation Brock: day 3

SITREP:

An hour before dawn, and am on errands, driving to Whitfield for potatoes from Tesco.

I have no trouble getting there, but cannot go back the same way as the A2 is now a lorry and car park.

All along the Deal Road, wherever there is a lorry-sized space, there is a lorry in it. Jubilee Way is closed off, and the countrybound carriageway is also a lorry park now. All round the roundabout, and in the hatched ares of the A2 there are lorries parked.

Same is true on the industrial estate, where lorries and vans are parked, double parked wherever they can. The new sport centre is a lorry park, or the car park is, and all along the pavements, there are lorries nose to tail.

I rush round and get my six items, and back to the car and off to Preston.

Lorries are on the bridge, both sides, over the A2, and all along to on-ramp to the now A2 lorry park.

In all laybys between Whitfield and Sandwich there are lorries and vans; parked, double and triple parked. And on the Sandwich bypass there are so many lorries in the lay by there, the greasy spoons could not set up, a day's business lost.

But turning inland towards Canturbury, I look towards Thanet where the sky is lit up by floodlights at the Brexit overflow car park at Manston. The whole runway seems to be lit, and trucks have their hazards flashing, visible for a couple of miles distant. The sheer scale of the crisis becomes clear, and almost none of those waiting have access to water, toilets of showers, most with use hedges and coke bottles for the toilet, I hope they all have enough food.

On the way back I pass a couble set up on deckchairs, using the lid of their trailer's toolbox as a breakfast table, preparing their first meal.

I come back via Deal, and along the coast road, as it is the only way of getting home without going into Dover and back out again. I see no trucks or cars being allowed to the port, and yet people, in theory could travel from midnight. quite how those parked away from the M20 and Manston are going to get tested is a mystery, but don't worry as I'm sure johnson has taken personal charge of the crisis.

Meanwhile the right wing press shil and repeat for Tory spin that this is all France's fault, and that the crisis is over as France is letting traffic through, and has Macron buckled on that is only a matter of time before they cave in on fishing too. Nothing on the total chaos caused by Johnson's speech last Saturday on the new strain of COVID and being unprepared for this. All France's fault.

They will use the same tactics to blame France and EU for Brexit too, and will probably get away with it.

The Government haven't got portable toilets in place after two days, and now they have to roll out mass testing for COVID for over 3,000 lorries, and the tests will have to be to France's satisfaction, not the UK's, so they will have to do the right testing, not the contant flow that the £100 billion moonshot produced that is accurrate only 50% of the time.

Testing could have started two days ago, meaning those tested then could travel today. As it is,...........