MPs always seem to think counter to the public view. Having said that, like you we are horrified at the attitude of a lot of TV including the news and current affairs programs which often give free reign to spokes-type persons for organizations and pressure groups to influence the TV public. These attitudes are often reflected in the much watched soap which imply we should be PC, get handouts and sue if we do something daft. At one on one chatting to people in the real world level there seem to be less of these people around but even in the 21 houses of our small hamlet I notice more and more are swapping from sense to sue as media pressure sways them. Talk about big brother as in the 1984 version - for nowadays a lot of the media stuff is slow brain washing. We notice the PC/sue attitude is spreading more and more onto the cut too. For example we say to someone at a lock, "More signs. Why when it's common sense?" They look at us like we are nuts and say, "It's up to them to warn us of dangers otherwise..."
--- On Sat, 11/22/08, Steve Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Steve Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Hi folks ) (Single Handed) To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, November 22, 2008, 12:14 AM Whilst single-handing in Stone the other day, I broke a fingernail as I climbed the ladder. If someone had been with me I wouldn't have needed to climb the ladder. Proof that it is indeed a dangerous thing to do... On a slightly less frivolous point I do believe that he blame and compensation culture which has been imported from our friends across the pond over the past decade is one of (if not THE) most damaging things that has happened to this country in many years. The consequences pervade so many aspects of life and cost so much to implement yet we are already starting to forget how things used to be. When I had a bad fall on black ice on a towpath and ended up on crutches for a month some years ago, numerous friends and colleagues said I should sue BW and were horrified that I wouldn't contemplate such a thing. I had a conversation with an MP recently where I said that the biggest improvement that she could make to my quality of life was a law which prevented me from suing anyone if I did anything stupid. She was horrified by the idea! Steve NB Bream [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
