Compensation flood
Even though they are as rich as Croesus, the insurance industry proffers the begging bowl today without a blush.
The ingrates whinge that £800 million hand-out of taxpayers’ money is not enough. Their bleating spokesmen talks about withdrawing their ‘almost unique’ flood protection insurance. His pained demeanor suggests that they provide a social service out of their own personal generosity. Nothing to do with screwing profits out of their customers and taxpayers – including those who live on hills.
Some of this year's floods were the worst for 200 years. Others were the worse ever. Some properties flood annually or every few years. To protect all of them from a repeat of this year’s floods would be impossibly expensive. Those who enjoy the delights of close river views must accept the burden of risk. Insurers must adjust their premiums to the individual risk. That’s their job.
Blur Homage Tut! Tut! I was not as star-struck as I should have been yesterday at my chance meeting with Blur’s Dave Rowntree. As a meeting later, the head of a think-tank insisted that I should have his card so that it could nestle in my wallet alongside Dave’s. A comment on yesterday’s blog said, “People like Dave Rowntree who have actual experience of drug use are the ones that should be Great stuff. Part of the European Drugs Convention is a commitment to find alternatives to the cruel futility of prisons. My constituency is generally average. In the past twelve months two of my constituents died after leaving prisons. One lived a week the other a day. Perversely they are included in the prisons’ ‘successes’ because both left prison clean. How many more of these successes are there? Playtime Hail to the Lib-Dems. Thanklessly they have toiled in the political vineyard bringing forth a rich crop of fresh ideas. The Tories cavort and yelp that Alistair Darling has stolen their policies on inheritance tax and air tax. Both were LibDem ideas years ago. Such behaviour will bring juvenile political japes into disrepute.
Tax Pain It’s a heart sinking moment receiving a message from a constituent with a Tax Credit problem. Six million families are benefiting from the valuable new benefits of Working Tax Credit and Child Tax credit which spreads £16 billion to families on low incomes. But as the Ombudsman has just reported the scheme is badly designed. These are case of unfair and distressing anxiety and financial turmoil. All are families with small disposable incomes. The Select Committee, on which I sit, have quizzed the Civil Servants involved. We will soon examine the Ombudsman’s report and, I hope, come up with a remedy to re-design the system. Rock repair Tomorrow there will be a Commons statement on Northern Rock problem. As a result of a Newport initiative, talks have been held with the Treasury and others in this country and abroad to find a practical robust solution. The local person involved deserves great credit for his initiative and energy. This is not the first time he has worked to meld together strong new combinations of companies. We may hear tomorrow that his work has succeeded.
There is a far better way. Acknowledge the high risk of floods of some dwellings. They are now repeatedly restored to the same design that is vulnerable to catastrophic flood damage. Why not re-design them to be flood resistant? A simple change is to lift the electric circuits from floor level to waist height or ceiling height. Expensive to replace kitchen could be placed upstairs. That would cut flood repairs to a fraction of their present cost and render the homes restorable.
shaping its policy. They all know that prohibition is no deterrent to use in fact it damages many more users than the drugs ever could never mind society as a whole. God help us if we go further down the road of USA style prohibition where a non violent possession only cannabis user is arrested every 38 seconds (over 750,000 in 2006 alone!!!).Jails are financed by confiscating their assets and a whole justice/prison/police system paid for by criminalising its own citizens.”
Through no fault of their own about 40 Newport West families have had sudden unexpected demands for the repayments of sums up to £5,000. People, who have never been in debt, find themselves in trouble through no fault of their own. They have declared their income truthfully but the system is prone to make over-payments.
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Posted by: john | October 22, 2007 at 12:43 PM