British authorities, take note that other countries have no difficulties in providing response centers to accidents/incidents etc.

Look and learn, Thames Valley, Metropolitan Police, PITO, Home Office, Foreign Office and the rest of the clueless government agencies - it is not difficult to provide a facility so that (1) the UK public is not ripped-off by your incompetence and (2) callers from overseas can actually get through. Easy peasy. The French authorities can cope but the British ones haven't got a clue.

In response to the accident at Toronto yesterday, Air France made the following available:

http://www.airfrance.co.uk/double6/passage3.nsf/(LookupPublishedWeb)/en-SIERA-ac...

<<
Air France has established a passenger information centre, and a toll-free number is available for family and friends of those who may have been on board flight AF 358 The toll-free number is :
For those calling from France : 0 800 800 812
For those calling from outside : + 33 1 56 93 10 00
>>

The simplicity of this (unlike the Met, they can even get the international dialing format in the correct manner) is in stark contrast with the attempts by the UK authorities in response to the London bombings.

Yeh - terrifying ain't it!!

Have you emailed Arnold (sorry I mean Stephen) Rimmer and Hazel Blears at the Home Office to point this out to them

but I recon C&W wouldnt want to pay for them!

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Sadly, +800 is not universally available - it tends to work from the 'developed' world and even then, some operators decline to route. Some operators will charge a premium rate too. +800 wouldn't really help with international termination as there needs to be a (more or less) guarantee of being able to call. Hence Air France knowing exactly what to do.

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Because in 1997 a whole lot of young inexperienced  Labour parliamentary candidates unexpectedly got elected.

Now they seem to have built themselves a career by just becoming hollow propaganda mouthpeaces who willingly spout "yes, yes Tony whatever you say I will do it without question".  Ruth Kelly seems to be another one from exactly the same mould.

By the way did you hear Tony Blair being asked a question at Prime Minister's question time about why Ofcom wasn't properly using their powers to stop millions of "Silent Calls" a week by uk telesales companies.  It seemed to catch him totally off balance.  He just said he would have to refer the matter for further advice.  Its clear that the man is totally ignorant of most telecoms issues.  If he understood them he would have been able to give a quick and smart looking reply.

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Ruth Kelly's most disgraceful moment came when she gave a long and totally immoral speech to try to justify the Labour government's failure to do anything at all to help the policyholders in Equitable Life and to try and blame the whole thing on the previous Tory government.

As my dad's pension was with Equitable Life and as my mother who depends on it (my dad sadly died before he could ever receive a penny of the pension) sees its value decreasing by the month I am a particularly ill disposed towards the said Ms Kelly.

Its good to hear that even some of you Labour party members can still see the faults in New Labour.  Don't worry though I can still see plenty of faults in my lot.  John Major and Ian Duncan Smith top the list of the all time Tory party hall of shame.

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I always knew when we picked Howard to replace IDS that we would lose the next election.

Michael Portillo could have saved the party but half of my prejudiced colleagues couldn't see it.  If only Portillo hadn't lost his patience by deciding not to stand for re-election he would have been in with a good shot of getting the leadership this time.

Instead of which they talk of David Davies.  Another grey man.