WHAT A NICE FAIR COUNTRY WE LIVE IN

A soldier who was seriously wounded in Afghanistan in a case of friendly fire might lose out on a £25,000 insurance payout because he carried the Carling Cup on to the pitch at Wembley.

Private Dave Tatlock, 20, was spotted by the private insurance company ABACUS before the match between Manchester United and Aston Villa.

The guy was left temporarily paralysed after being hit by shrapnel two years ago and doctors said that he was unlikely to walk again. However he can now get about a bit, limping and in pain, with a stick. He lost the use of his calves and has severe nerve damage. He has no use of his left foot, wears a splint to walk and can move his right foot only slightly.

At Wembley he was seen limping unaided up from the tunnel to deposit the trophy at the side of the pitch, while a helper walked behind him with a crutch. Maybe a dream for him. Not much to ask when you have given your mobility for your country.

Kevan Jones, a minister at the Defence Department, who recently clashed with Joanna Lumley, said that MoD officials would demand explanation from ABACUS. He said he would be asking them to rethink their decision.

I’m not sure why a lad going to war with our Army has to take out personal insurance. It cost £56 a month from his meagre private’s salary and you really would have thought that a semi-civilised country could have managed to guarantee that, in the event of injury the country would look after their guys.

By strange co-incidence tonight I got round to watching the “Despatches” programme where seedy MPs and a Baroness prostitute themselves for £3000- £5000 a day, and something really strange hit me.

Maggie Moran, who tried to get away with £22,000 for the dry rot in her boyfriend’s flat was featured. Of course in the newspaper coverage she got little space because having never been anything of any import she was a lot less newsworthy than people who had once been something.

The programme documents how Moran, looking fit and well, turned up for an interview with the “set-up” company and offered her services “starting tomorrow”. Meanwhile she has not been present in the Commons for over 6 months, and when the presenter phoned her office for an interview, posing as a constituent, he was told that she was ill.

So in summary, on the one hand there’s this 20 year old lad who was sent to Afghanistan by the government, got shot up, is in a situation where, below the waist he’s pretty messed up, who had had to take out private insurance, and because he managed to limp a few steps (with someone following him with his crutches) his insurance payout is in jeopardy. On the other hand we have this MP who tried to fiddle money (and nearly got away with it) to do up her lad’s house, and who has, since she was caught, never put a foot in her constituency office or the House of Commons and is being paid full wages and will get over £50,000 stepping down money and her pension... and she’s caught out (again... is she a tad gullible or what?) and what’s going to happen to her? She probably won't go to the Lords.

What the hell kind of country do we live in?

I’ll just repeat the name of the insurance company by the way in case anyone missed it

It’s ABACUS ... now where are my insurance policies?

There is an update in the comments (below) taken from Abacus's website. I thought it fair to publish it alongside the story I wrote. The information in my post was garnered from The Times. I imagine that they checked their facts before publishing.

........

THIS IS WHAT NICK GRIFFIN WAS TRYING NOT TO SAY

I’ve just watched a video from Youtube as featured on Scunnert Nation.
I think everyone should have a look. It’s what Mr Griffin was trying not to let us know when he attempted to appear like a reasonable and sensible politician (?!?) on his Question Time appearance.

The video is of Wembley High Street. The commentator a BNP member from South Wales, talking about how it is no longer his country, because there are a lot of Asian people walking about on the street. A good deal of the footage concentrates on an area right outside a mosque.

Apart from the colour of the people’s skin, what else do we see in the video? Well we see a lot of signs up warning you that the road has no markings and we see shops and bus stops and all the other stuff you’d expect to see in a busy part of the English capital.

What do we not see? Well loads of things obviously, but what I particularly noticed was that there was no one fighting, no one drunk, no one begging and no one vomiting in the gutter.

It just seemed like a normal, decent, not terribly unpleasant shopping area with lots of little shops.

The commentary, for the first part in English, is about how it’s not “our” country any more. (That’s not something I feel in particular because, in my view, it was never my country.) The second part, when our intrepid reporter gets out of the car is delivered in Welsh (with subtitles). Clearly he’s not so intrepid that he wants to make blatant racist remarks in English surrounded by people who can understand him. (Yes, that’s right, they may think that the immigrants don’t speak English, but they are not prepared to put it to the test.)

Now, the BNP may have some reasonable points to make about the failure of immigration policies of the London government, but when, as here, the commentary sinks to the level of talking about people going out in their pyjamas, the other points that they make become tainted with the ignorance that that kind of comment displays.

I urge you to go to Scunnert’s blog and watch the video.


PS. Our commentator makes several remarks about the iconic status of Wembley, and he notes that it is the home of British football. He maybe hasn’t heard of English Football, Scottish Football or even Welsh Football. Strange that. Another piece of crass ignorance!