David Cameron abandons Brits hurt abroad in terrorist atrocities
16/02/2011THE abandonment of victims of terrorism abroad is a cruel betrayal which stains David Cameron’s good name.
Tourists maimed and murdered on foreign travels by gunmen and suicide bombers will get no help from this Con-servative regime.
I understand Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has dropped Labour plans to compensate those targeted because they carry a British passport.
Insurance companies refuse to cough-up for acts of terrorism overseas which saves them money but leaves the wounded and families of the dead struggling to cope.
People such as film-maker Will Pike, destined to spend his years in a wheelchair as a paraplegic after the 2008 Mumbai atrocity.
His spine was irredeemably damaged when sheets, curtains and towels knotted together to escape the Taj Mahal Hotel gave way, sending him plummeting to the ground.
Had it happened in the UK he might be entitled to as much as £5million to rebuild his life and pay for care.
Because it didn’t an appeal fund had to be set up to help a severely disabled man abandoned by the authorities.
Campaigning Labour MP and former Minister Ian McCartney, a huge loss to Parliament since he stood down at the last election over his own health, devised a scheme to fund compensation.
Under his prompting the Labour Government agreed to help victims with the hundreds of millions of pounds unspent in a 1993 insurance fund set up to cover IRA explosions.
But ConDem Ministers and Whitehall mandarins quietly – and quite disgracefully – dropped the plan.
You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to link the about-turn to the Treasury creaming off surpluses in the Pool Reinsurance Company since the IRA put down its detonators.
Clarke squeaks of reviewing the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Cameron utters honeyed words of concern in the House of Commons.
Yet victims of Bali, Mumbai, Moscow and bloodbaths to come are ignored by officialdom. It’s callous and indefensible of Cameron when the cash is in the coffers.
This is one outrage a Con PM cannot blame on the deficit.
Elder drill and a Willow hearth.
