The Demise of a  Great British Tradition

If there is an image from post-war England that has become part of British mythology, it is that of the queue, based on photos of people waiting in orderly lines, whether for food or fortune. In doing so, they are adhering to an unwritten rule of fairness and respect. Following post-war rationing, the queue became embedded in the national psyche and the subject of much British humour, universally .  Over the following decades, queueing has been one of those oft-quoted and self-deprecating behaviours that sets the English apart, with its hint of resignation and acceptance, of doing what they were told with grace and good manners.

While society has moved on and rationing has been replaced by queueing for trains and buses or service desks and call centres, the idea of the queue is still strangely sacrosanct and quintessentially British. And woe betide anyone who tries to jump the queue  - as Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield found out at the late Queen’s Lying in State.

 Many of us have an inveterate dislike of queue jumpers, those who push in ahead of others. Afterall, by so doing they are effectively saying ‘I am more important than you’, a display of arrogance that is an affront to our idea of fair play and good manners. Yet now that everyone, it seems, is in a hurry to make their mark or get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ the practice is starting to fray. Instead, it feels as if looking at how to get round, over or ahead is now deemed fair game.  Getting an advantage over one’s neighbour is seen as something to aspire to, implicit in the cut and thrust of today’s commercial world.

 But there are other forces at play centred on the failings of successive governments to quash the incentives of buying advantage. By creating different strata of services, especially for the state's essential provisions and encouraging the monetising of society, they have delivered a fatal blow to the grand tradition of queuing. At the forefront are the problems besetting the National Health System, and the encouragement for people to ‘go private’ to beat the queue is a part of a new battleground. It seems patently wrong that people have different life expectancies linked to where they live and what they earn.  And who can blame those who can afford to go private for avoiding the ever-increasing queues that dog the NHS. Queues created by system failure, in education, in jobs, in health and in funding care, the post-code lottery or providing alternative avenues for those who can afford it all serve to undermine the age-old nobility of queuing.

The failings in our education system, again largely the result of political failing, have also led to those who can afford it, to break rank, to seek to do better for their children elsewhere, but relocating to the school zones for grammars or high performing schools, or using independent schools or tutors, of course, bestows all sorts of advantages. Whether through old alumni or networks, getting a head start in some premier sport, in the recording studio, through internships or theatre school, through the influence of mum and dad, the queue is never linear.  And though we can bemoan the fact that it has always been thus, it is worth noting that inequality in the UK has rocketed since its historic lows in the late 1970s, fuelling a two-tier society, which can be neatly divided between those who can and those who queue.

The examples are everywhere, from the class of airline tickets with their separate queues (or none at all); the growth of the hospitality industry with corporate boxes and the fixers for getting the best tickets in town for shows and concerts - for a price; or the drivers of 4 x 4 or top-brand vehicles, who are programmed not to queue. Queue avoidance has its own filters. Having to be recommended by a member to join a club is invariably easier for those with the wherewithal or necessary contacts, as evident by fresh faces amongst the florid in the stands at Lords, (although, officially you cannot join the queue until aged 16 and then have a 29 year waiting list to navigate - but not for all, it seems).

 The cynical amongst us can see queuing in another way, as a social mechanism devised to keep the masses in order, promoted and endorsed by those who have never had to queue. Perhaps the habit has been bred into us as part of good British manners, by those who see the benefits in promoting conformity and order for the populace at large. I am not suggesting we abandon the civility of queueing because it is both the most fair and orderly way to get things done. But we should encourage the queue jumpers to join in also and learn the joy of orderliness and the feel-good factor gleaned from having to wait their turn.