So RyanAir is suing the Government. It's not for the money, no, no ... it seems to be a matter of principle. Now this is RyanAir, and I am not sure that principle can sensibly come into the same passage of text. But they have found a law under which they say that the Secretary of State for Transport is almost bound to recompense businesses for extra costs resulting from a dire emergency; and Mr O'Leary says that he will present any monies gained in a successful court case to charity. But I am sure that he will find a reason to deduct airport taxes, fuel surcharge and credit card fees from the sum before he presents it to a charity.

I find it ironic that Mr O'Leary has found such a law, mainly because the Government reckons that it imposed the security restrictions under a different law, thus disqualifying RyanAir's suit. But it is also ironic because Mr O'Leary's company used the law to excuse its non-payment of compensation for losing a valuable (well £50) part of my baggage that its ground staff in Knock made me put into the hold for reasons of security. The law that it used was the the Prague (or Warsw?) Convention on carriage on an aircraft: that it was required to compensate me only according to the weight of what they lost, not its value.

I am steadily going off flying on airlines. I am not afraid of flying as I am a professional pilot, nor am I afraid of dying, not in the overall scheme of things. But I cannot bear to waste my time in the transit process, in trying in vain to have a comfortable journey or to deal humorously with my fellow-sufferers. The whole process of getting there from here is demeaning in the way we have to queue, try to get a decent seat or try to have a pee during the flight. But most of all I hate the waste of energy in getting airborne, the damage that is being done to the environment.

But the greatest irony is that between the protagonists, I don't know whether I would trust the Government over Mr O'Leary.

The first post is the introduction, I suppose. This blog will cover a number of subjects, but especially bits about politics and conflct. This is mainly because it does not seem possible to influence events outside your household through the normal democratic means. The Member of Parliament who represents this constituency seems to be hard-working, but ineffectual. That's not his fault but the fault of the current Government; Tony Blair has managed to emasculate the normal parliamentary system. That would be a Bad Thing even if he were right, but his principles seem to be shot through with aligning this country's foreign policy with that of the USA. And that would not be too bad a thing if were not so, unquestioning ....!

cb