Who’s to blame for Volcanic Ash?

Hey readers – I was watching the news this morning and saw some fat cat chief executive from an airline moaning on about how the government over-reacted to the threat of Volcanic Ash. The airlines, he said, have lost millions and it was the government’s fault!

Well, I hate The Man as much as the next man. But I have to question the validity of the CEO’s points. Joe Public, as well as the airlines, has also found himself out of pocket thanks to the Volcanic Ash since some insurance companies declared that they would not pay out on claims made as the Volcanic Ash cloud was an ‘act of God’.

I thought it was particularly rich of the said CEO since the comments were made on the same day that the World’s Favourite [sic] Airline, British Airways, was grounded due to the industrial action of disgruntled cabin staff! Maybe if the airlines treated their staff better and they weren’t so reliant on jet engines then we wouldn’t have had so many delays?

I know that there is something of a blame culture prevalent in Cameron’s Britain and maybe that is a bad thing. But if someone does have to take the fall, who is to blame for Volcanic Ash? God, the government, the airlines? You decide. Here’s the evidence:

God - He sometimes gets fingered for massive natural catastrophes. Although, in fairness to the omnipotent creator, it is almost always one of His earthbound flunkies that points the finger of blame. Men of the cloth are usually quick to point out that a natural disaster has come about due to God being angered by homosexuals. Maybe this time, God was angry with Stelios et al. Or based on the fact that Northern Ireland seems to have been affected worse than the rest of the UK, He’s got the hump with the peace protest. While the Catholics and Protestants were at each other’s throats we didn’t have ash clouds did we? And, as the old saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire.

The thing is, the volcano is located in Iceland – so maybe it’s not the Abrahamic God kicking up the ash. Maybe it’s a Norse god like Thor or Odin. Those Norse Gods were a bit more involved on a day-to-day basis with their believers. Volcanoes, fires, storms – its all meat and drink to the Norse Gods. If we’re going to blame the Volcanic Ash on a God, then I say we Look North. I reckon the Old Testament God is probably kicking back and considering the Middle East and the rise of arabs.

The government – like a football manager must take ultimate responsibility for his team’s performance, so too must David Cameron and his sidekick Nick Clegg take the blame for ANYTHING that goes wrong. I saw chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne on the telly yesterday slagging off Alistair Darling’s budgeting skills. It’s a classic move, natch, it’s called getting your excuses in early doors Osbourne. Tough shit though, it’s your mess now and unless you turn things around quickly you’ll be the schmuck carrying the can. That said, the government cannot really stop volcanoes exploding and if they had let the planes carryon flying and one of them had crashed, then they most definitely would have ended up looking silly.

The airlines – well, granted they were told by the government that they shouldn’t fly their aircraft and they almost certainly didn’t cause the volcanic eruptions. Unless, that is, the Gods were displeased with the working conditions of the cabin crew. Joking aside, maybe that might have something to do with it. It strikes me that a good number of people are quite scared of flying and so they probably do quite a lot of praying that their flights are safe and successful. There’s probably a damn sight more praying that happens in airports than in churches these days, it all adds up doesn’t it?

Newsdesk out