At least Thomas Cook’s fall allows ministers to look in control

It’s not obvious that the state has a moral obligation to repatriate holidaymakers whenever a tour operator goes bust, as Thomas Cook did on Sunday night. Being briefly stranded in a sangria-fuelled resort is not like being left behind in a war zone, after all. But when large numbers of tourists are involved such situations will swiftly become consular crises if government does nothing to help. So there’s pragmatic reason for ministers to act — as well as political motives that might have been scripted by Armando Iannucci for The Thick of It.

Here’s the scenario: a government in chaos under a prime minister who’s all over the Sunday papers for his ‘association’ with a blonde who is neither his wife nor his official mistress. Then: bingo! A household-name firm — run by a crew who the spin doctors can paint as greedy men with continental surnames — abandons 150,000 yeoman Brits abroad, some ‘held hostage’ in unpaid and probably insanitary hotels.