And that poor woman (is it a sin to be insufficiently aware of the volatility of petrol?) now has 40% burns on account of government advice. People are being jailed for comments deemed merely offensive, yet a government minister's comments are responsible for an actual physical injury and he's still in his job - appalling.
This is just nonsense - you seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the Oppositions attempt to blame the government for Ms Hill's misadventure.
Let's be clear. Whether or not he was correct to do so, Mr Maude suggested that people might wish to keep a jerry can of petrol in their garage in reserve.
“As and when, when it makes sense, a bit of extra fuel in a jerry can in the garage is a sensible precaution to take. We want people to have the chance, at their own time, when it makes sense to them, in their own arrangements, to deal with things in a sensible way.”
At no point did he say anything about transferring petrol from a container into a jug in one's kitchen, next to a naked flame. Is the government really responsible for this woman's behaviour? At 46, shouldn't she have known better?
Besides, you seem sure that she was only doing this as a result of the government's advice. That assumes that while hearing and misinterpreting Mr Maude's initial suggestion, she somehow completely missed Matt Wrack's counter-advice the following day:
“This is not sensible advice and people should be discouraged from doing so. The general public does not properly understand the fire and explosion risk of storing fuel, even if it was done sensibly. People without garages might be tempted to store fuel in the home, with disastrous consequences in the event of a fire in the house or a neighbouring property. It is already against the law to store more than 10 litres of petrol in two five-litre plastic containers in the home. As that amounts to little more than a third of a tank in most cars, the advice is of little practical help.”
Perhaps she was out buying petrol at the time...
