Sorry, no refunds.

Many years ago I bought a car. In fact it was my first car, and I was moderately pleased with myself because it was fairly cheap. However, it was also a Fiat and nearly everyone I knew told me that Fiats had a reputation for being a bit useless. 'If it starts first time it'll never make it all the way to where you're going,' they said. 'It stands for Fix It Again Tomorrow,' they said. 'Don't for Christ's sake buy that bloody Fiat,' they said. And although many journeys were completed without it breaking down, proving that there was a lot of hyperbole in what I'd been told, it was nonetheless true that these were broken up by periods of absolute rage and misery because the fucking thing was off the road for some reason or other. Even when it was working it seemed there was always something that needed to be fixed, even if it was more an annoyance than an actual hindrance. There were probably good Fiats around (I had a decent Fiat years later) but this one was a dog.

It wasn't as bad as I'd been told it would be but I had been warned it'd be a dog and it was. And who's to blame? Who was responsible for inflicting the bastard thing on me? Who should have paid the price for my misfortune? Only one name comes up, a certain Mr A Exile. I chose to ignore advice and buy a car with a poor reputation just because it was a cheap set of wheels, and neglected to consider that everything between those cheap wheels might be more demanding and less stable than Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

Oil pressure light.

And I did indeed pay the price, literally and figuratively, for not listening to advice. Caveat emptor, as the Romans said, meaning 'you bought it, tough shit'. Nobody made me do it and I did so knowing that others had advised me against it. There is nothing to be done in this situations but accept it and move on, though bizarrely some don't see it that way.

Labour have failed in an eleventh-hour attempt to get compensation for people who bought ID cards as MPs approved legislation to scrap them.

It had to be Labour, didn't it? The party with absolutely no concept of people being responsible for their own decisions.

Shadow ministers wanted people who own cards to be refunded, saying they had bought them in "good faith".

Like I did with that car? Look, sometimes you just have to accept that you've made a bad decision. It's part of being human and imperfect, and when all it's really cost you is thirty quid and some face I'd suggest you've got the benefit of an important life lesson for a bargain price. Refunds? Pah!

Labour's Denis MacShane, a cardholder himself, said his money was effectively being "confiscated" and said if someone's house had been taken by the state, that would get recompense.

Demonstrating that Labour also has little grasp of what happens when you buy something. In return for getting something you want or think you need you give your money away. It is not confiscated, and since governments and politicians in general and socialists in particular are experts at confiscating money I find it very disappointing that Denis McShane is unable to tell the difference. You still have your card, Denis. What you are unhappy about is that it has become worthless and without any useful function, even though many felt they always were and it was never a secret that the ID card scheme would be scrapped if Labour lost the election. The value of pointless government shit may go down as well as up.

... SNP MP Pete Wishart said it was "tough luck" on card owners as they had made an informed choice to buy one.

"We have to be absolutely and abundantly clear with this - ID cards are exclusively and solely a New Labour creation," he said. "All other parties in this House made it absolutely clear that we would have nothing whatsoever to do with them."

Ministers say cardholders were aware they would be invalidated with a change of government.

Quite. But if McShane wants to press the point maybe it would be worth conceding that perhaps both parties should settle up.

Rejecting calls for compensation, Immigration Minister Damian Green said the scheme had cost £292m but fewer than 15,000 cards had been issued - equivalent to £20,000 per card.

"This is by any standards a scandalous waste of money which lies squarely at the door of ministers in the previous government," he said.

"We don't see why the taxpayer should have to pay out yet again."

No, but here's a thought. Denis McShane and nearly 15,000 other pricks who wanted ID cards got them in the face of all the opposition and in the knowledge that their future wasn't assured, and they got the rest of the country to bloody pay for it all. Compensation, Denis? Sure, but first let's discuss the 19,970 quid difference between the cost of the card you wanted and what it cost the rest of the country. Alternatively you could just grow up, accept the fact that you made a poor buying decision that is your responsibility and your's alone, and shut the fuck up.


H/T Looking For A Voice.