Money for nothing and your kicks for free... (Compensation culture)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Compensation culture
Date:	30/03/08 (169 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some people do deserve payouts

Disadvantages: Most dont

With the news that Maxine Carr, the girlfriend of the Soham killer Ian Huntley, has requested breast enhancements on the NHS to boost her self-esteem, in the same county where one in three women struggle to get breast cancer drugs because they cost too much for that particular trust, isn't about time we got our priorities right when it comes to hand-outs. If I was the ex-girlfriend of one of the countries most notorious killers and given a new identity I certainly wouldn't be walking around sticking out my new pair of 38DDs! This need to please those who have put little into society is systematic of New Labors attitude that those who contribute the least are somehow able to exploit the system the most. You remember those social workers that took the baby of the mum because they thought the kid was in danger and they would have another Victoria Columbie` on their hands if they didn't go against their feeble bosses and act? Well they have both been suspended from their jobs and the unnamed woman from Nottinghamshire is in line for a £20,000 grand payout for damages. Too many lawyers are scum these days and getting in the way of people that just want to do what's right.

In Northampton we are the proud owners of Abington Park, a beautiful ornamental expanse that contained over 350 different verities of trees when it was opening by royalty a very long time ago. It has a Redwood tree, a Monkey tree and stuff that even Charles Darwin would be surprised to find on an atoll in the Pacific. Although still stunningly British and iridescently stirring as the seasons wash through with all the different colors and varieties of tree and shrub on show, especially today, the park is shrinking, the lumberjacks moving in with their thick teethed saws and noisy wood grinders for yet another borough council chainsaw massacre.

The council says they are cutting down the trees because of disease, but those who care to ask the woodsman if that is the actual case get a different answer. Yes the trees are diseased, but all trees are when they age is the reply. The clue to why they are really cutting them down is where the mighty trees are located in the park. It's the ones next to the roads that are coming down. It turns out it's not because nearby residents and drive through traffic have complained about damage to their cars when storms sweep through but the councils fear they will complain and sue in the future. To be fair some of the elderly residents had grumbled about recent storms but it wasn't a petition or anything. These are posh people; of course, conkers and pine cones pinging and clanking off their People-movers, one step to far from Mother Nature. They have this beautiful park next door that puts at least 30k on their house prices and all they want to do is get it cut down.

It's not just Northampton where nature is being chainsawed over silly fears over health & safety and insurance claims, over zealous councils across the country ripping out trees in streets and parks because of misguided fears over compensation claims. The chainsaw massacre is resulting in more mature and ancient trees being chopped down than saplings going in to replace them these days it has become that bad. As with most green issues, the people that rant and rave we should go green are most often the ones that put in the insurance claims because acorns have dented their sunroofs.
Let's get our priorities right here guys. The trees were here first so don't park under them. Seeds and rotten branches fall of them!

An increasing slice of council and health budgets is also put aside for compensation claims, greedy lawyers more than happy to feed off those ambulance chasing companies to make a few quid. I'm sure you guys have all been approached by the agents on the streets and some tempted, but what you don't realize is the lawyers take 60% of the no win-no fee and the cases can drag on for up to three years at the lawyers and insurance company's leisure. The more lawyers get a foot hold where these compensation claims go the more the coast will be passed on to you and me, eventually ending up like the ghastly American litigious society where there are over one million practicing lawyers.

We also see this duplicity in schools, a record number of claims made in 2006. If little Johnny takes a tumble, parents seem all to keen to see how much money they can make out of it, regardless of the ripple effect. Schools have no financial means to protect children from every contingency and so we get to this silly over-protection of the children and leave them vulnerable in other ways. Rather hypocritically, the parents growl up to the school gates in their SUVs, horns honking and snarling as square pegs look for rounds holes, little Johnny more likely to go under the wheels of one of these monstrosities than bang his head falling off the slide. We have to accept that kids will be kids and schools are schools.

In some cases claims are legitimate, Terminal Five an example of why we have so many genuine compensation claims these days. The terminal was opened too early because the contractors wanted to earn their bonus for finishing on time and BAA also claimed their bonus from the government for that completion, timed to help aid the bid for a third runways at Heathrow, which was rigged anyway. All concerned knew it wouldn't work and it was unfinished but it's the way business is done these days, no one ever admitting they are to blame, and the lawyers on hand to back that up... The teething problems there were because the terminal could only function in the gray area we all work and live in, the breaking and bending the rules that seem to be the only way that makes everything work these days, the costing of the building centered around that corner cutting culture. It's the same with the hideous ant-terror regulations at Heathrow and the like, the searches not so much about stopping planes being blown up or hijacked by people with sharp objects in the air but really about confiscating all the things at check-in that you can then buy in duty free just through the doors in the departure lounge, or from the trolley dolly on the plane, of course A broken bottle of scotch is just as dangerous as a hand gun.

When I left school I worked for one of the biggest supermarkets and it was common practice to block the fire exits with stock that had nowhere else to go, due to the way they had to fill the shelves at night. If there was a fire at 9am then it would be a disaster. If we didn't do it the whole system would back up and the company loses money. Everyone knew it was dangerous but we also knew it was the only way the store could function and we could keep our crappy jobs. The boss would tell you off for blocking the doors and you would all nod a rye smile to yourself. But because the store was making huge bucks then it was an acceptable risk. That attitude sums up why T5 failed and why those complaining passengers are entitled to every cent they get. Commercial buildings are built for profit not safety these days, how ever sexy they look.

The worst offenders for unworthy compensation claims are those sexy female city slickers, claiming millions of bucks for allegedly being bullied or sexually harassed at work, the exact tactics they used to get up the career ladder. Attractive women have so many physical advantages at work and as soon as the wrinkles creep up and their looks stop working for them then in go the compo claim. One of this years Apprentice contestants made a similar claim for one million pounds a few years ago after enduring bullying and sexual harassment at a major bank. It will be interesting to see if she suffers anything similar in the show and how she reacts, Sir Alan having to be on his best behavior in the boardroom if he doesn't want to cop a lawsuit! I don't think there is EVER any justification for huge payouts to women who have been verbally bullied in the city. Its part of the culture there and you know it when you go into it. In America they drug test all their employees every sixth months and store the sample for any such court cases. It's a blizzard of cocaine in the square mile here and coupled with all that unscrupulous trading going on women really need to put those comments and law suits in context. It does seem to be women, who make the most compensation claims across the board in Britain, feminist, indifferent on why that may be. Kid who get blown apart in Iraq and Afghanistan get 16 grand a lost limb.

Another angle is racial discrimination, ethnic minorities who realize that in the current climate they can claim discrimination or bias because of the amount of pressure groups around today bending over backwards to help ethnic minorities. One serial litigant decided it was time to cash in, he using the application scam where you apply to a firm or employer under your ethnic name and then ten other ones under English names like John Smith with identical qualifications. At first he had a genuine case, universities and colleges perhaps more interested in white teachers than Kenyan ones. But after he got his first payout of £12,000 he because addicted to doing it and made numerous claims. The problem was educational facilities became aware of his tactics and so discarded all of his claims, meaning more law suits and payouts, the schools and colleges going to court, lining up all their ethnic minority teachers and lecturers...

Clearly racism is alive and kicking in Britain and we all know that employers do ignore ethnic minority applications and candidates, unfortunately because of that race form in all application forms so they have a legal pointer to identify the claimant, but we also know race is now a good tool to get what you want if you play the system like a violin, although never outweighing the disadvantages of being Black and Asian in the U.K. Just as much as discrimination makes us more equal it also pulls us apart. The Muslims, never out of the news these days, are planning a multi-million pound law suit in one of the countries top security prisons because they were served ham sandwiches during Ramadan. Leeds prisoners may be entitled up to ten grand each compo for their trauma. You can't make this stuff up guys. The problem is pretty much anyone can make these claims because the lawyers no they win either way.

This compensation culture that's coming like a tsunami of greed seems to be about people not wanting to take responsibility for everyday s**t that happens. For me it should be, 'what don't kill us only makes us stronger, a phrase that needs to be reflected on and leant from. If a kid bangs his head on the playing area then there's less chance of him doing it again. Its human nature-we get knocked down and we get up again. How long will it be until we have virtual lawyers on our portable wrist computers that point how much money we can make from tripping on the pavement?

And finally...

You may recall I told you about foreign prisoners who were being paid 'compensation' to go back home and serve out their sentence in their home countries, to ease the stress on the British prison population, some 11,000 foreign lags now swelling the jails to bursting point here, the lags even having to share Playstations and Sky remotes! Such is the appeal of comfy British prisons to our exploding foreign prison population many of them turned down Jacky Spiffs offer to go back to Lagos and Mogadishu with £800 on the hip, at least enough to buy a kilo of crack in Eritrea. Definitely enough to buy a fake passport to come back and do it all over gain. And why not, because New Labor has now put the money up to a maximum of £3000 tax free, trying to get more to engage with the scheme. So when a foreigner goes to jail in the UK he's guaranteed three grand when he or she comes out! Brilliant! The sum of money is three times the annual pay increase offered to the embattled prison officer at 2.75% per annum. Is it any wonder they are making extra on the side smuggling drugs in to make up a pay packet to feed their kids. What the f**k has Blair done to this country!!!

Summary: I want money!