Tuesday, August 11, 2009

More on compensation

I caught a report and interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, I missed the very first part of the intro so all I caught was a possible back-down on making compensation retrospective. "Oh this again" I thought and as such tried to fit the report and interview into a preconcepted 'army space' which got confusing very quickly as this had nothing to do with the military.

Turns out someone went to Egypt with their girlfriend and were killed in a bomb attack. The father of the victim was on the sofa for an interview and to make this clear he is not asking for compensation for himself.

The interview itself was peppered with tit-bits such as "You expect the government to help you" that luckily they had credit cards so they could fly out there even though "we didn't know who would be paying".

Woah I'm sorry, I really am sorry that your son was killed along with all the others, but what are you expecting money for exactly? As British nationals were involved I would expect the Foreign Office to keep an eye on the investigation and liaise with victims and/or their families; I would also presume that the Foreign Office would pay to have any remains transported back to the UK out of sheer decency, but that's it.

Bill asked the father about "travel insurance" and got a laugh in return - who goes on a holiday expecting to be blown up who goes through the small print of the policy? Well if you didn't whose fault is that? That'd be yours.

If I went skiing and was killed in an avalanche why would I expect my family to be compensated by the government, heck if I was mugged and killed why would I expect compensation.

Seriously what is going on with this country where we seem to be expecting the government to bail us out of things that went wrong from the choices we made and that had little or nothing to do with them?

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