Newsflash: You're responsible for yourself.

The British government won't provide monetary compensation to British citizens if they're injured in terrorist attacks while overseas.

Well....yeah. Why would they?

Yes, you could say that if the actions of the British government (eg, essentially mindless support of American policies with little regard to the effects on Britain itself, let alone the rest of the world) may increase the liklihood of terrorist incidents. And yes, that is a bad thing and I think the British government ought to do something about it (eg, stop being so stupid on many issues.)

But here's some startling news: if you're an adult, you're an adult. If you make the choice to go travelling, you're taking a certain degree of risk. If you get on a plane, you're accepting the risk that the plane may crash or the pilot my take you to Ethiopia instead of Jamaica, or that someone might try to fill their shoes with explosives and blow the plane up. But you want to get somewhere quickly, so you take that risk. Similarly, if you want to go to Egypt, or Israel, or Indonesia, or wherever, you take a risk. These are not the most stable regions of the world. There's a sizable amount of anti-American/British/Western sentiment going on there.

Now, if you don't know that there's this risk, then I have no sympathy for you, because you're immensely out of touch with current events, to the point of absolute ignorance to a staggering dimension. Read a newspaper.

If you do know that there's a risk, then it's your responsibility as an adult to weigh that risk. Is your desire to go to wherever greater than your fear of something bad happening? If yes, then great: go, have a great trip, take whatever precautions you feel are wise, and I wish you the best. Have a nice holiday.

If your fear is greater than your desire to travel, then don't travel. I'm sorry you're so afraid, but that's your choice.

If you do evaluate the risk, and decide it's worth it, and you go and travel, then yes, the worst may happen. You may get blown up in a nightclub in Tel Aviv; you may be on a flight that's hijacked; you may be taken hostage in Cairo. These things happen. It's unfortunate and I have no doubt it would be unspeakably horrifying and traumitizing to the survivors.

However: You had a choice and you took a risk. Therefore, you are responsible for what happens. Don't expect your government to clean up the mess you got yourself into. We live in a world where people are not nice and things are not fair, but that's the same for everyone. Life isn't picking on you if your hotel gets shot up; that's just the way things are. You took a choice and now you have to deal with the consequences. It's an issue between you and the government of the country where it happened, it's between you and the management of the establishment you were in, and so on. Your government at home was not there and they're not your mother who's going to kiss your wounds and make you feel better.

Why do so few people in the world seem to be able to understand the concept of evaluating risk?