Water Sports

Barely six months after the event, Her Majesty's Government has condescended to launch an investigation into the saving of twenty-seven British jobs in the Channel. Although the stakes are considerably lower - the future of the National Johnson set against the fate of a bunch of migrants - Grant Shapps has faithfully imitated his master by using a current inquiry as the excuse for postponing a future one. Even so, the present internal investigation possesses such effectiveness and scope that its inadequacies are apparent even to the grinning wideboy at the Ministry for Motoring. Authorities on both sides of the Channel are being sued for manslaughter, and Shapps no doubt calculates that an "independent" inquiry in the British tradition will be a convenient opportunity to splash a bit of the blame onto lefty lawyers, Channel Four, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and so forth.