This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 22 April 2010

Dear Listener

*** As UK airspace opens the skies are already buzzing to the sound of bucks being passed (I know I said that on Wednesday but I liked it so much I thought I’d share it in case you didn’t hear Money Box Live this week). As an estimated 150,000 British travellers struggle home, airlines, insurers, and banks are busy trying to find ways to avoid meeting the cost of hotels, food, alternative travel, lost wages, and damages for being bored, cross and tired for so long.

 

Money Box is returning to the vexed question of who, if anyone, will pay up. Airlines which said they wouldn’t now say they probably will. Insurers who said they would are now saying, well, sort of, hang on a minute, ex gratia, reasonable, sometimes, maybe. And sitting in the wings are the banks – or more accurately credit card providers – who are quietly hoping not too many people will turn up s.75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (as amended) which gives them equal liability for items paid for on a credit card but not provided for an amount not not exceeding £100. Yes there is a double ‘not’ there – and we will try to cut through the Gordian Knot and find an escape for those seeking compensation. (Not not exceeding £100 means individual items of £100.01 or more and there is also an upper limit of not exceeding £30,000).

 

Regular listeners will remember the wait of more than a year which some XL customers endured while banks and the insurer ATOL argued about who was liable for their costs when XL went bust. More on volcanic cash on Saturday (yes I know I made that joke on Wednesday too). And by Saturday I’ll have worked ‘lava’, ‘magma’ and ‘pyroclastic flow’ into the script as well. I might even try to say Eyjafjallajökull again.

 

*** Item 2 will be inflation. Now I know I am in danger of frequently predicting something and then just waiting for it to happen before claiming I was right. And I know I have been previewing ‘Inflation – The Return’ for some months (if not years, Ed.). But, really, 4.4%???? We have not seen that sort of rate since, oooh, September 2008 and August, and July, and June and June 2007 and December 2006. OK. But BEFORE that you have to go back fifteen years to December 1991 (Major/Lamont) to find the retail prices index at 4.4% or more. So is inflation back? And if it is, so what?

 

*** And talking of the Conservatives my Man Who Would Be Chancellor this week is George Osborne – who in 1991 was at Magdalen College Oxford studying history. Some of you have sent questions and it just may not be too late to send more (early Friday please). And of course you can still send them for next week’s quizzing of Lib Dem Vince Cable (which is an anagram of bendable civic elm). Go on, try other favourite names at wordsmith.org/anagram – it’s free. I take no responsibility for external content.

 

***The longest journey starts with a single step.  And the long march to the item on investing in China may finally be over. Find out if this long-delayed and frequently cancelled flight of fancy takes to the airwaves.

 

*** Plus…we’ll see what else batters down the studio door to get on air. The producer has her eye to the spyhole…but so far the chain is still firmly on.

 

Money Box is at noon on Saturday, 9pm on Sunday, or on the website bbc.co.uk/moneybox at any time. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say on one of these topics. 

 

Best wishes,

 

 

 

Paul

 

PS. Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

 

 

 


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