Shame On Britain For Abandoning The Calais Refugees.

“Do some humans smell different mummy?” My seven year old had spotted police with sniffer dogs as we waited to board our ferry at Calais. He wanted to know if the refugees from Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan emitted a uniquely distinctive aroma that differentiated them from the French and the British.

“No”, I said, feeling impotent by the scene of inhumanity (the dogs and the depravity of the camp I’d seen earlier). “The dogs can’t smell their nationality, only their fear". Fear, on this scale, has an intoxicating pungency, I explained. “I hope you never have to know it”.

As the motorway neared Dover a couple of weeks earlier, portaloos appeared at regular 50 yard intervals. Remnants of the tail back that ensued when 2,300 people disrupted traffic when they entered the tunnel to jump on trains and trucks in an effort to reach Britain. The inconvenience to British holiday makers was widely reported in the press, the subtext being “bloody selfish migrants disrupting our holidays so they can come here and have a better life. At our expense…”

Whilst I sympathise with holidaymakers and truck drivers, it is wrong to subjugate the refugees’ plight to our inconvenience. Conditions these other human beings have to endure in the camps, where they have to queue for hours for a toilet unfit for human use, were considered less newsworthy. The inflammatory, dehumanising language, used by David Cameron and Phillip Hammond recently, has served to dehumanise the refugees. A tory tactic that is beneath contempt.

The press has largely (with some notable exceptions) failed to communicate the stories behind the human beings who flock to the “Calais jungle”. They are not seeking a better life (heaven forbid), they are seeking life itself. They’re not just fleeing economic hardship, most are fleeing death and persecution. During the mass bid for freedom in July, a Sudanese man in his 20s died after being crushed by a truck. The day before, an Egyptian man was electrocuted at the Gard du Nord in Paris when he leaped on the roof of a Eurostar train headed to London.

These are not the actions of people making lifestyle choices. These are acts of desperation by people for whom there is nothing left to lose. Whereby death is a more favourable outcome to the alternative. Most are fleeing corrupt regimes in Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, who starve, kill and torture their own citizens while world leaders bury their heads in the sand.

The same short term politics that precipitated the global financial crisis is now cultivating a European refugee crisis. This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Foreign policy that serves to prop up and embolden despots will come back to bite. David Cameron and Francois Hollande have known about the genocide in Sudan for twelve years but, like their UN counterparts, have failed to implement the UN mandate to protect citizens when oppressed by a sovereign state. What are these people, abandoned by the international community supposed to do? Stay and be starved, raped and bombed, or try to get the hell out of dodge? I know what I’d do.

Even now, as the sky falls, Theresa May stands at the shores of Dover and, with all the delusion of king Canute, issues edicts to refugees to turn back. But the refugees, like Canute’s tide, cannot stem their flow. There is no going back. However high the fences, however torn the flesh in a bid to scale them, and however many dogs are used to sniff out human beings as though they were animals, the refugees will keep coming. We have left them nowhere else to go. British political ineptitude is part of the problem, so it is right that David Cameron provides a fair share of the solution.

Instead, Britain has turned its back on the people at the heart of this crisis. Journalist Owen Jones visited the camp and talked numbers with a UN co-ordinator there.

According to the UN representative in Calais, “31,745 people applied for asylum in Britain last year; twice as many opted for France; more than six times as many applied in Germany; and in Sweden, with a population nearly seven times lower than Britain, the number was 81,180. The UK accepted 10,050 non-EU asylum applications, but France took over 4,000 more; in Germany, it was more than four times as many; Italy, ravaged by economic crisis, accepted more than twice as many. And yet, the vast majority of refugees move from one poor country to another. UNHCR figures show that 86 per cent of refugees live in poor countries, compared with 70 per cent a ­decade earlier; 95 per cent of Syrian refugees are in neighbouring countries, mainly Lebanon and Turkey”.

Fortunately, citizens around Europe, embarrassed and enraged by their government’s inaction, are plugging some humanitarian gaps. Individuals are setting up make shift collection points throughout the UK and France, where vital supplies can be deposited. These incredible individuals will then transport the food, winter clothes, shoes, tents etc to the refugees in Calais, at their own expense. There’s bound to be one near you and/or a crowd fund site where you can make a financial contribution to transport and other costs.

As we were embarking at Calais, my son asked, “What would you do if you saw a refugee climbing onto a truck”? “I’d say, good luck to them. What would you say”? Looking perturbed, he shook his head slowly and replied, “I’d tell them not to come to Britain”. As I tried to disguise my disappointment and wondered where I went wrong, he added, “Someone should warn them that David Cameron doesn’t like poor people, or the homeless or foreigners (he talks to The Big Issue sellers)”. “Interesting angle...”, I conceded, “but until such time as he starts shooting them, Britain has got to be a better option than Sudan or Syria. Right”? But by then he was dangling some aromatic French cheese out the window. "What are you doing"! I gasped. "I'm putting the dogs off the scent. Fear isn't the only thing that stinks mum". Ain't that the truth. 

Want Stress Free Car Hire? Take a Forensic Approach

Pre motherhood, if I wanted to rent a car, I’d book online and rock up at the car hire desk equipped with driving licence and designer shades. Nowadays, I take a more CIS, evidence based approach to car hire. Less Thelma and Louise and more CIS, without the chiffon headscarf.

Arriving at a busy airport on my own with a child, I wanted to minimise any hassle or stress. I never had a problem in the past but I had read the horror stories about the tricks and hidden charges that can ruin a holiday. But first I had to find the best deal.

The cheapest deals are usually through brokers. When booking, I realised the fuel policy was “full to empty”, which is not good. It means you get charged a higher rate for it being filled up on your behalf when you return the car. In the box provided I stated that my rental was conditional on a “full to full” policy (which is the car provider’s policy). When I heard nothing I contacted the car hire provider directly. They said it would be fine. I hung up but the horror stories were ringing in my ear. Is it a ruse? When I get there, will someone else say they know nothing about it and declare the booking void (which the broker says can happen on the terms and conditions). I phoned back and got an email address and name and put it in writing.

I arrived at the car hire desk armed with all my documented evidence (which I didn’t need to produce) and a zoom lens camera. Despite being told the car was brand new and never used before, I took photos from every angle, inside and out (you can’t be too careful when it comes to these cowboys). A piece of dirt was wiped away but left a finger mark, so I took a picture of that too for good measure.

And I didn’t allow all those smiles to lure me into a false sense of security either. Not on your Nelly. Sign here and initial here and here, the agent said. The small print was very small (I should have gone to Specsavers) so I asked her what it said. When she answered, I said, “ I don’t understand that and I don’t sign anything I don’t understand”. So I asked for her pen. To her horror, “what are you doing?” she panicked, looking around for her boss, who appeared to be hiding behind a beige Ford Focus with alloy wheels if I’m not very much mistaken. “I’m writing my understanding of what you just said so that I can initial It. You want me to initial it don’t you?” She nodded resignedly, surveying the mounting queue behind me.

I proceeded to do that everywhere I was asked to sign or initial, including writing “full to full fuel policy agreed” in capitals and underlining it. In the end, she and the manager gave up the will to live, took the clipboard from me and ushered me on my way. I even put an x where the thumb mark was. In the end I think they would have paid good money to get me off the forecourt.

We returned the car an hour early (always leave enough time to review the paperwork and ensure no miscellaneous costs have accrued before dashing off for the plane) ready to thoroughly examine the car. The same young woman was there. “It’s full to the brim” I beamed,  “and not a thumb mark on it”! Without even looking, she took the keys and said “I don’t doubt it. I can see you’re very thorough”, and grabbed all our bags, dashing to get us on the shuttle bus going to the airport terminal. “There’s no need” I protested. “They’re on wheels and our plane isn’t for ages”, but she seemed keen to send us on our way. I will definitely recommend this company I said. All those horror stories psyched me up to do battle, but you guys are amazing. Excellent customer service, no underhand tricks….but we were off.

We waved at the team from the bus, promising we’d be back again. Their gait like smiles indicated the stress these people are under. I bet they have to deal with a lot of weirdos in that job.