The M1 Motorway Fire.

On Friday April 15th Britain's first and most important motorway, the M1, which links Manchester and the North of the UK to London and the South of the UK was shut after a large fire at a scrapyard beneath the motorway. This caused travel chaos ahead of a busy weekend of sport which saw the London marathon, both semi-finals of the FA Cup being held at Wembley stadium and the Premier League match between Arsenal and Liverpool at Arsenal's north London stadium. As the fire has also caused structural damage to the motorway it looks as though it could also cause disruption to the travel plans of people who are planning a holiday for the coming four day Easter Bank holiday weekend and the four day Royal Wedding/Mayday Public/Bank holiday* the following weekend. This has led to a lot of people suggesting that it is a very unfortunate time for such a dramatic event to take place.

That it most certainly is. If you've looked at the Libyan rebels in any depth you'd know that a very high proportion of them are British citizens from cities like London, Edinburgh and Manchester. In fact if you were feeling cheeky you might suggest that you've got more chance of hearing a Manchester accent in Benghazi then you've got at an average Manchester United game. That would make it very tempting to have the Libyan rebels temporarily represented in the football code book by Manchester City - Manchester United's great rivals and the football team supported by people who actually come from Manchester.

Yesterday's (16/4/11) FA Cup semi-final was a grudge match between Manchester United and Manchester City. As Manchester United already represent the British state in the football code book then if someone had suggested updating that book to include Manchester City as the Libyan rebels then that game, which Manchester City won 1-0, along with Moussa Koussa's appointment as Britain's envoy to the rebels could have contributed to an entirely false impression of a fractured relationship between Britain and the Libyan rebels. Sadly no-one did mention that change to the code book which certainly made travel to the Manchester derby difficult.

The presence of a scrapyard though also means that there was a Dale Farm element to the story. For those of you who have not been following Dale Farm is a large Traveller/Gypsy camp in Essex, UK which was built on a former scrapyard and is facing eviction. With all legal routes exhausted the Dale Farm residents are just waiting for the local (Basildon) council to issue a 28 day notice. This will give the residents 28 days to voluntarily vacate the site before bailiffs and the police will clear the site by force. Now I'm not saying that this will get violent but Constant & Co are the bailiffs employed to do the job and the United Nations have appointed Ivory Coast style observers to monitor the eviction. The Brits are really not happy about this because a UN report into their efforts to cleanse an ethnic group from an area doesn't really fit in with their image as a champion of human rights who are bravely trying to protect the people of Libya. In fact there are rumours that UN involvement means that the Brits may back down but I don't know how much stock to put in those whispers because ahead of the eviction there is likely to be a lot of intelligence gathering, false information flying about and attempts to probe the sites defences. Besides the game proper doesn't start until the 28 day notice has been issued and the residents haven't even begun to dig the trenches yet.





*Contrary to popular belief the day of the Royal Wedding is not a Bank holiday. It is merely a public holiday meaning that all the legal employment protections that come with a Bank holiday do not apply. So if you do get a paid day off it's at the discretion of your employer.