IT may be the case these days that in the aftermath of any misfortune, real or imagined, the common response is not one of lament, but a demand for compensation.

But should this be a reason for denial of the truth?

For, currently, newsagent Mohammed Safraz is seeking 'compo' for the damage -- estimated by him to be in the region of £85,000 -- to his home, business and car which were firebombed in the racial upheaval that swept Burnley last June.

But because the police steadfastly refuse to call these events riots -- though they involved gangs of youths rampaging through the streets, setting fire to property and cars for two nights -- uninsured businesses cannot be compensated.

In one sense, this is reasonable. If business owners were not prepared to take out insurance, why should they expect the ever put-upon taxpayers to compensate them?

And as Burnley MP Peter Pike points out to the uninsured Mr Safraz, if his shop has suffered a fire in the 'normal' way, he could not have been expected to be paid out.

True, but that doesn't mean that the events that took place in Burnley were not riots, whether or not their classification as such adds strength to any claimants' case for 'compo.'

I mean, what else do you call happenings in which the sort of mayhem that Burnley experienced last June prevailed?

A pub, two shops and several cars were set on fire by gangs of youths as trouble broke out for two nights running and police were rushed in from across Lancashire to contain in it.

Some 120 arrests were made, 200 suspects were identified and 40 detectives were drafted in afterwards to investigate serious crimes that included arson, criminal damage, attempted murder, numerous assaults and provoked 150 complaints to the police.

That's not a riot? Pul-eese, pull the other one. Yet we have the police's refusal to call the events last June a riot backed up not only by Mr Pike, but also the government-appointed Task Force headed by Lord Tony Clarke to look into what happened.

'Serious disturbances,' is their preferred description. This is selective phraseology.

And its concerted use stinks -- if not of a device to thwart compensation claims, legitimate or not, then also of a denial of what hundreds of people saw with their own eyes on the streets of Burnley those dangerous nights and of what millions of TV viewers also witnessed.

Of course, they were riots.

And if more evidence is needed of that, then let the testimony of Burnley's prime euphemism coiner, MP Peter Pike suffice.

For in the immediate aftermath of the mayhem did he not publicly plead for people to stay calm, stay at home, stay off the streets and "not have any further rioting."?

And when we have task force chief Lord Clarke telling us that the people of Burnley deserve nothing less than transparency and openness in the probe into about what went on, is it not an insult to them and the integrity of his inquiry if the truth is clouded by selective semantics for whatever reason?