According to BBC South news Local Basingstoke MP, Maria Miller, wants an investigation into the Friday snow that hit Basingstoke.

Surely, she has better things to do?

Here are my findings.

The Forecast

At the time every comes home from work on Friday evenings, it started snowing very hard.

Although snow had been in the forecast, the extent of it had not been expected. Around 8-10 inches fell on and around the Dummer turn off from the M3 in the space of a couple hours.

There is nothing anyone could have done about it. Not without the sort of equipment used in places like Norway and Canada. That sort of equipment costs millions and I would hazard a guess, not worth a once in a decade event.

As far as I saw (I was sat in the middle of it) everyone did their best. People helped each other out, some folk abandoned their cars and others caught up on a few winks of sleep.

A Bit of Drama

In a perverse way, it was quite exciting. I had already been rescued from the A303 by the AA (within a heroic 15 minutes) so to be in the middle of the BBC Radio 5 national news headlines was quite thrilling. In a moment of narcissism, I almost rang Radio 5 to tell them the dramatic tale of the dog and I trying to get from Andover to Basingstoke.

Then I told myself not to be such an attention seeking twat. I’d only end up saying something like ‘You don’t expect that sort of thing round here…it’s normally such a quiet area’ after forgetting I was talking about snow, not some bloke who had shot his wife.

It would be a sentence that would never be forgotten and repeated by my friends and acquaintances forever. Two minutes of national radio fame transformed into 20 years of merciless piss taking.

When I eventually made it to my destination (it took 4 hours) it became apparent that the snow had only really fallen heavily in a 20 square mile radius of Basingstoke. Places like Winchester and Romsey had seen nothing more than a dusting.

This is because south west of Basingstoke, around Hatch Warrren and Dummer, sits up on the Hampshire Downs. It is about 600 ft above sea level, so it gets walloped when it snows. It also sits on the M3, A303, major traffic junctions. The snow started falling very hard at 4:00 PM.

As a consequence, it was the perfect storm for traffic gridlock and there is nothing Maria Miller can do or say, that will change anything. An investigation is a waste of time and money. She would be better off concentrating on not making ‘mistakes’ with her MP expenses claims.

Emergency Services

As a friend of mine said, “As far as I know, nobody in or around Basingstoke died because of snow. This could be down to all the emergency services working their butts off. Not forgetting all the hospital workers, many of them had to walk a long way into work. I doubt they called in sick or had a “snow day”. Perhaps Mrs Miller should be giving them some sort of recognition”.

Most British folk like a bit of snow drama. This is because our winters are largely forgettable, damp and dreary affairs. They are generally like the scene outside my window right now. Dismal.

I don’t want council workers and the emergency services to get scapegoated by a Maria Miller investigation. Restricted of resources by her shitty, self-serving government, why should people doing their best to keep a town moving in a snowstorm, take a load of stick?

Most people I know enjoyed seeing the white stuff against an azure blue sky on Saturday and Sunday. It was a rare glimpse of genuine sparkling winter weather and any crappy journeys home were long forgotten.

I’d rather have in investigation into how Maria Miller is still an MP. It would be far more constructive than an investigation into why it snowed on a Friday afternoon when everyone was coming home.

Enjoy the rain.