It’s just the sun, stop treating us like infants, says carole malone

Some people just have the maturity to enjoy the sun (Image: Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ) My little dog Murphy is sitting beside me panting and his eyes are screaming

“Tell me how to escape this hellish heat”. So, when I’m done talking to you I’m going to take him into the garden and hose both of us down. RELATED ARTICLES Okay, so none of this is

comfortable. But do I think it’s a national disaster? Do I think the country should be brought to a shuddering halt (yet again) Is this a Heatwave Emergency? No, it’s not. It’s just bloody

hot. But it’s the kind of heat people all over Britain pay hundreds, even thousands, of pounds, to escape to on holiday every year. So why is the media, the Met Office, some ministers and

various Government agencies talking to us about a handful of days of heat much like they were talking to us when Covid was killing hundreds every week. Hell, even Doom Monger in Chief Sir

Chris Whitty reared his worried little head this week and took to Twitter to tell us about the Met Office extreme heat warning (like we didn’t already know) and lecturing us about how early

intervention to cool people down and rehydrate them can save lives. And can someone please explain why schools are being closed, hospital appointments cancelled, train services cancelled?

Even some airports have been closed, we’re told, because the tarmac is melting. Well, it damn well shouldn’t be. Why didn’t they use a tarmac that didn’t melt? Because you don’t hear about

airports in Dubai closing thanks to melting tarmac. We’ve also been told to expect that transport services will be disrupted – why for goodness sake. Don’t trains and buses have air

conditioning? Well if they don’t – the companies who own them should plough some of their vast profits back into making sure they do. Cabinet Office Minister Kit Malthouse even went on TV

sporting a very grave face pleading with people not to travel. Avanti West Coast, Transport for London and London North Eastern Railway also urged passengers not to travel unless it was

absolutely necessary. We’ve even had the chairman of the NHS Confederation complaining that hospitals are going to be “really, really pushed” over the next few days. Lord Adebowale said: The

NHS “will cope but coping isn’t good enough.” If our NHS with all the multi billions it gets can’t cope with a few days of extreme hot weather then it really isn’t fit for purpose. And

where does the Met Office get off screaming that thousands are going to die. That’s inflammatory tosh. In the period 2000-2019 the average number of people dying because of the heat is 800 a

year. Conversely those dying of the cold is 60,000. That’s what we should really be worried about this year – not a two-day heatwave. Someone also needs to tell these forecasters that it’s

not their jobs to dish out health and safety advice. Because far from protecting people they’re actually terrifying them. What the hell has happened to this country? Has Covid stolen every

shred of our resilience, our grit? Does the country really have to shut down because of a few days of extreme heat. Is the “British Spirit” something that belonged to a bygone age and in

this brave new world of ours all that’s required to send us into a blind panic is a few days of very hot weather? Why do we have Government ministers telling people to stay indoors and not

go to work because it’s hot. Oh hang on – it’s not called hot weather. It’s a Level 4 Heat Emergency which of course makes a better headline and generates more fear – much like those

headlines did in the dark days of Covid. And maybe its thanks to Covid that the Nanny state has morphed into something way more “nannying” and more dangerous. Do we really need continual

national announcements telling us to “drink lots of water”, “walk in the shade”, “apply sunscreen.” We know all that for goodness’ sake. Or maybe all these Doomsday warnings are just an

excuse to justify the existence of various Government organisations. Organisations like the UK Health Security Agency which issued a dire warning this week to “drink gallons of water but no

excess alcohol. “ Yeah, right. Tell that to the hordes drinking beers outside pubs and wine bars. Tell it to the people having BBQs in their back gardens and sipping chilled Rose. Tell it to

the people who are actually enjoying the good weather and don’t see it as a calamity of catastrophic proportions. All this hysteria is being generated by “state” bods who got used to

bossing us around during Covid and just can’t shake the habit. Does every single thing that happens inside this country have to be elevated to National Emergency status with dire warnings

about how people will die if they don’t heed Government advice and stay cowering behind closed doors at home? It’s nonsense. By this time next week, or even tomorrow, things will have

reverted to normal – well, as normal as they can in a country where the general population are treated like incompetents. Of course we need to take care of the vulnerable – the old and the

very young. And yes, we should all take sensible precautions(ie we shouldn’t force poor guardsman to swelter in bearskins outside Buckingham Palace) But, as a nation, we really should be

better prepared for hot weather – like Europe and like many countries around the world are. Schools, public transport, hospitals and offices should all have efficient air conditioning. If

they did the country wouldn’t grind to a halt. But, for now, let’s stop behaving like the hot weather we all flock to every summer in various parts of the globe suddenly becomes “a killer”

when it occurs here in Britain.