Bang crash crunch
Compensation culture makes life expensive and dull
WITHOUT insurance, letting off lots of explosives in public is a bad idea even for the most ardent pyromaniac. Hundreds of traditional November 5th firework parties have been cancelled or scaled back this year because the organisers have found insurance prohibitively expensive, costing £700-£2,500, up from £30-£250 last year. At these rates, the insurance can cost more than the fireworks. One village in Wiltshire was reduced to having a pretend bonfire lit by electricity.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Bang crash crunch”
From the November 9th 2002 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party