Today various people have joined in collective outrage over the news that the Foreign Office tries to reclaim the money from loans given to victims of crime abroad. Tom Tugendhat, the current Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has described it as ‘absurd’…

But in 2014 the Foreign Affairs Committee with many of the same members asked the FCO to ‘be more rigorous’ in recovering those costs…

“We agree that there are circumstances in which it is not only compassionate but a most effective use of funds to help a national to return home, and prevent further problems. The FCO is right to review its debt recovery systems, and it should pursue repayment more rigorously in future.”

Giving loans to overseas victims of all types of crime has been standard practise for years, and it is not unreasonable to ask those who can pay them back to do so. The professionally offended shouldn’t hop on the outrage bus until they’ve seen all the facts…