Inconsolable and uncompensated

The initial frisson of Westminster interning hasn’t quite work off yet. I still can’t quite suppress a big, foolish grin when I emerge from the tube and see Big Ben looming over Victoria Embankment. And the casework is still fascinating, and my inner geek does love hoofing through Hansard.

One case is nibbling at me, however. A woman - whose husband killed their daughter and then himself - applied for compensation, and was awarded £11,000, but this wasn’t near enough to cover her counselling bills and the fact that she has been unable to function ever since. For a while I’ve been trying to find some way to up her award or seek financial support elsewhere, but I can’t find anything.

Mostly, this is because her husband killed himself. Had someone else killed her family, she would be awarded over £20,000. Because a member of her family killed her family, she’s awarded half as much. I’m not sure whether either your family self-destructing is worse than someone else destroying it, but I’m sure it’s at least equivalent. Neither am I sure who decides whether any of these equivalences would be financial as well as moral. But I’m fairly sure the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority haven’t considered this properly.

Environmental baubles

LiveEarth, in all its Germanic compound-word glory, descended on six unfortunate corners of the world today. As Madonna declared, surrounded by thirty unusually white and attractive schoolkids, “Tonight is not about entertainment.” She wasn’t wrong.

The splendidly pointless switching-off of “all non-essential lighting” in Wembley did offer the chance for us to check that the splendid halo of light on the southern horizon from our top bedroom is indeed the Wembley arch. They didn’t switch off everything, though - presumably an outbreak of stadium-based criminality comparable only to the New Orleans Superdome wouldn’t quite embody societal unity.

Surviving Southall

Sidestepping the occasional crack-smoker and stumbling across a SWAT team preparing to storm a house, t’other intern Alan and I valiantly canvassed our way across the residential wastes of Southall today.

Despite some grim estates, Southall boasts the colour and individuality of the Punjabi presence of Sikhs and Muslims, who make up over half the population of the borough. The High Street is refreshingly empty of chain stores, peppered instead with a variety of ethnic emporia and a ripe array of fresh fruit and veg stalls.

With the by-election looming only 13 days away, Southall is suffering columns of lilywhite LibDem interns and an ominously hectoring Tory radiocar. Blues and Yellows both claim they’re the only party challenging Labour. In fact, it seems the Tories’ local entrepreneur Tony Lit is striding into 2nd, behind Labour’s 10,000+ majority. Ming’s merry men may get squished.

I admit it - the Westminster end of politics is definitely more to my taste. Quel snob.