A world of blame...

My journey from Towcester in Northamptonshire to our head office in Saffron Walden took me four and quarter hours this morning. Whilst travelling past Milton Keynes on the A5 dual carriageway the road went from slushy to completely snow-covered in the space of about 10 minutes. The snow flakes were like tennis balls.

This additional travelling time afforded me some moments to reflect on all sorts of things, the first driven by someone on the radio blaming the authorities for all the travelling difficulties people had been faced with this week. Funny because I didn’t think the authorities controlled the weather.

So I got to thinking about all the blame that the media help us to seek to apportion:

• "House prices have fallen and the economy is ruined because of the banks", is one I’ve heard. I could argue that culpability lays in a number of areas, such as government, lenders, borrowers, supermarkets, manufacturers, house builders, town planners and global impact; but that’s probably one for another day.
• At my youngest son's school this week, someone fell over on ice in the car park and the school have to consider the risks of being sued for allowing this to happen.
• I heard another news story about the AA blaming councils for car accidents in the snow as they had not gritted the roads sufficiently - which makes me laugh as this morning I was overtaken on a snow-covered dual carriageway by a van that must have been doing 70 plus mph. If he has an accident in my view the only one to blame will be himself.

I think the media and experts should allow us to take responsibility for our own lives. If we buy a house there is no guarantee that it will go up in value. If we choose to drive in the snow we should take care to protect ourselves and other road users. If we do bump into an open drawer at work, we should not enlist the help of an “ambulance chasing” claims management company to see how much we can get out of our employer.

As a species we are genetically disposed to calculate and take risk. As cavemen every journey away from the cave was fraught with danger. More people are seeking ways to take risk than ever, otherwise bungee jumping would never have been invented.

So for me, I don’t blame the authorities for snow, they couldn’t change it; but that leaves me with a need to blame someone else for something else. So I will, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee for reducing base rates again yesterday, adding further pressure to savers reliant on interest for their income. I blame them because fiscal policy takes time to work, we have had more than enough reductions already that have not been allowed to take their course and…. they had a choice!