September 2008
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Michael Burleigh
A National Disgrace
Friday 19th September 2008
Among the things that make one ashamed to be British- Russell Brand for example- the mean-spirited treatment of the Gurkas ranks pretty high. The Daily Mail has been campaigning on their behalf, with a corruscating piece by Stephen Glover the other day. Despite the fact that 45,000 of these extraordinary men have died, and another 150,000 been wounded fighting for this country, the government (and presumably it is the dysfunctional MOD) is equivocating about allowing two thousand of them to reside in this country or to receive medical care for what are often serious injuries. In a typical piece of New Labour lawyer reasoning, the government claims that 2,000 of these men should be denied such rights because the Gurkas HQ, down to 1997, was in Hong Kong, and that therefore they have no 'significant' ties with Britain. Some of them don't even get the pension which is already one sixth of what a British soldier receives. I would have thought that charging a Japanese machinegun nest was a 'significant' display of affection for the country that recruited them. Gordon Brown has ghost authored a few compilations called 'Courage'. His government's disgusting treatment of the Gurkas shows that this is just a PR stunt, and that it does not really care about our armed forces. There are many reasons to seek the ouster of this failed government, but in this household its eagerness to take in every passing Somali or francophone West African, while refusing entry to these brave Nepalese, has become the clincher. Whatever one thinks of Liam Fox, he would not behave so dishonourably. The costs of such a measure would be a fraction of the vast sums Labour has squandered to keep its north-east client base happy by sustaining Northern Rock.
10:14 am
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COMMENTS
Steve Buckley
September 19th, 2008
1:09 PM
1:09 PM
I agree entirely. Funnily enough I'm sat here between lessons avoiding the job of having to write a 'course evaluation' that will illustrate how I have promoted the 'equality and diversity' agenda in my teaching over the past academic year. One of my courses is based around 'Rebellion and Disorder in Tudor England', I expect it'll be a piece of piss to show how I've promoted ethnic, gender and disability 'positives' in my lessons on the Pilgrimage of Grace and Perkin Warbeck.
elberry
September 19th, 2008
2:09 PM
2:09 PM
It does make you wonder why Nu Labour are so eager to accept immigrants with no interest in British culture, who are indeed often hostile to British culture, while the Gurkhas are treated like worthless spongers. Could it be because the Gurkhas are a part of British culture? - that, in fact, the unifying policy of Nu Labour is to weaken and if possible destroy anything which would make a chap proud to be British: hence Gurkhas are seen as bad but Pakistani Jihaddists are seen as good.
In more enlightened times the British Army would have lived up to its name and slaughtered Brown and his treacherous rabble.
michael burleigh
September 19th, 2008
6:09 PM
6:09 PM
I sympathise with you Steven. All those evaluations seek to make explicit what should be implicit, and, more importantly provide work for the burgeoning tribe of educational managers, who I saw flourish in universities like gnats over the glens. I think Elberry has also hit on something, namely that the Gurkas are symptomatic of the positive side of Empire- that other people might be willing to have died for it- a thought that conflicts with their view that all people from the Third World are victims. Presumably that is why we have Somalis and Africans who speak French?
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