History Film / TheDayBritainStopped

* PoorCommunicationKills: Since many utilities are privatized, the companies in charge of them usually don't communicate when work is being done on things such as water mains. This becomes a serious problem when the police try to keep traffic flowing off the M25 by taking them to an alternate route to Kent, only to be blocked thanks to road work the authorities had no idea about. Road work that required traffic from Kent to be diverted, which they chose to do to the M25.

* DisasterDominoes: The whole premise of the show demonstrates how a failing infrastructure, along with poor political leadership in planning/maintaining said infrastructure can cause the following scenario: A seemingly usual traffic jam can severely disrupt the operations of numerous people that keeps a nation going, and results into an overworked air traffic control triggering a air crash by a human error.

* TheGrinch: Dramatically deconstructed with the rail unions. While we don't really see the union's side of the story, it is quite clear that -intentionally or otherwise- the rail workers' union and their decision to go on strike was the trigger for this documentary. (See TwistedChristmas entry below.)

* {{Mundanger}}: The whole point shows how failing infrastructure, poor politics, and poor planning can severely cripple a nation. (See DisasterDominoes entry above)

The story starts from early December, when a rail strike is called by the railway union due to safety concerns. The rest of the film focuses on how the events manifest on a particular day (19 December). The rail strike forces more cargo and people on the roads than usual, with the Christmas rush not helping matters. An accident occurs on the M25 motorway outside of London, with traffic rapidly backing up. Due to other mismanagements within the traffic and police authorities, what was supposed to be a usual annoyance for motorists results in [[DisasterDominoes the dominoes starting to tip, the traffic jam extending to the whole of London,]] [[FromBadToWorse and eventually grinding the whole of Britain to a halt.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: First aired on 13 May 2003, the story is set in December of that year.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The Galt family (barring the father), being stranded on the M25 motorway on their way to Heathrow Airport, decides at the last moment to walk the last one kilometre to Heathrow Airport. Arrived the airport an hour after the scheduled flight departure, only to find that the plane was delayed as well. Cue [[RockFallsEverybodyDies Airplane crashes, everybody dies.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: First aired on 13 May 2003, the story is set in December of that year.

* RecycledSoundtrack: The film's soundtrack includes excerpts from the scores to ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'', ''Film/RequiemForADream'', and ''Film/TheSumOfAllFears''.

* ArtisticLicenseSports: One of the reasons why the traffic gets so bad is an international friendly between England and Turkey at Old Trafford. However, international friendlies do not take place during the Christmas period (when even Premier League sides are known to play up to four times in ten days), and the two sides would not play a friendly so soon after facing each other in the qualifiers for Euro 2004.

* ArtisticLicenseSport: One of the reasons why the traffic gets so bad is an international friendly between England and Turkey at Old Trafford. However, international friendlies do not take place during the Christmas period (when even Premier League sides are known to play up to four times in ten days), and the two sides would not play a friendly so soon after facing each other in the qualifiers for Euro 2004.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The Galt family (barring the father), being stranded on the M25 motorway on their way to Heathrow Airport, decides at the last moment to walk the last one kilometre to Heathrow Airport. Arrived the airport an hour after the scheduled flight departure, only to find that the plan was delayed as well. Cue [[RockFallsEverybodyDies Airplane crashes, everybody dies.]]

* SensorySuspense: The plane crash is first shown on a radar screen.

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: First aired on 13 May 2003, the story is set in December of that year.

* {{TheGrinch}}: Dramatically deconstructed with the rail unions. While we don't really see the union's side of the story, it is quite clear that -intentionally or otherwise- the rail workers' union and their decision to go on strike was the trigger for this documentary. (See TwistedChristmas entry below.)

* {{TheGrinch}}: Dramatically deconstructed with the rail unions. While we don't really see the union's side of the story, it is quite clear that -intentionally or otherwise- the rail workers' union and their decision to go on strike was the trigger for this documentary. (See SoaplandChristmas entry below.)

* SoaplandChristmas: By the morning of 20 December, we have a disaster consisting of:

* TitleDrop: A newscaster mentions that the public has started referring to the day's events as "the day Britain stopped."

* {{TheGrinch}}: Dramatically deconstructed with the rail unions. While we don't really see the union's side of thing, it is quite clear that, intentionally or otherwise, the rail workers' union and their decision to go on strike was the trigger for this documentary. (See SoaplandChristmas entry below.)

*** And the above is just the events that happened on the particular day in Britain. It's probably not unreasonable to think that the disruptions lasted beyond Christmas and even beyond New Years Day.

* DisasterDominoes: The whole premise of the show shows how a failing infrastructure, along with poor political leadership in planning/maintaining said infrastructure can cause the following scenario: A seemingly usual traffic jam can severely disrupt the operations of numerous people that keeps a nation going, and results into an overworked air traffic control triggering a air crash by a human error.

** A daughter who died en route to hospital (from an accident on the M25)

* Mundanger: The whole point shows how failing infrastructure, poor politics, and poor planning can severely cripple a nation. (See DisasterDominoes entry above)

* DisasterDominoes: The whole premise of the show shows how a seemingly usual traffic jam can severely disrupt the operations of numerous people that keeps a nation going, and result into an overworked air traffic control triggering a air crash by a human error.

The story starts from early December, when a rail strike is called by the railway union due to safety concerns. The rest of the film focuses on how the events manifest on a particular day (19 December). The rail strike forces more cargo and people on the roads than usual, with the Christmas rush not helping matters. An accident on the motorway outside London occurs, with traffic rapidly backing up. Due to other mismanagements within the traffic and police authorities, what was supposed to be a usual annoyance for motorists ends up with a traffic jam which is longer, and takes much more time to get through. [[DisasterDominoes The dominoes start to tip from there, with the road network unable to cope with the overload of traffic,]] [[FromBadToWorse eventually grinding the whole of Britain to a halt.]]

!!Tropes used for this work:!
* DisasterDominoes: The whole premise of the show shows how a traffic jam can severely disrupt the operations of numerous people that keeps a nation going, and result into a error-induced air crash.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The Galt family (barring the father), being stranded on the M25 on their way to Heathrow Airport, decides at the last moment to walk the last one kilometre to Heathrow Airport. Arrived the airport an hour after the scheduled flight departure, only to find that the plan was delayed as well. Cue [[RockFallsEverybodyDies Airplane crashes, everybody dies.]]