Yes, I know I’m going on about this, but that’s because our lords and masters are buggering about whilst people are having holes drilled through their kneecaps or are being shot for washing the underwear of “the British.”
Gordon Brown made a statement yesterday that was so full of caveats as to be almost worthless, yet it got the headlines required. Britain takes in hundreds of thousands of migrants per year and yet these few hundred people, whose lives are at risk because they worked for us, are being told, thanks, but sod off.
I don’t have an answer to “but why?” Apart from top-drawer twattery.
Added: I wrote to my MPs about this (I might live in the Staffordshire Moorlands now, but when I was abroad I was registered to vote in Stoke-on-Trent (North)). The MP for SOT (N) Joan Walley replied positively to my email, but the wording she used that stuck in my craw was:
I fully endorse your concerns, and from what I have gleaned about this issue and the government’s response over the recess, understand that as a result of the recent media interest in this, (my emphasis) ministers are looking very carefully at what can be done.
That’s sharing, caring social democracy in action folks. God I hate them….
Come on, Mr. Fact. It is a well-known and time-honoured tradition to leave your close local allies behind when the battleground is to be abandoned. I once read that local policemen/auxiliary forces in the former colony of Aden weren’t exactly treated nicely after the British forces withdrew. Likewise, the pieds noirs and the harkis who could not escape in time after French colonial rule collapsed, often met a rather grim fate. Initially, De Gaulle’s government was absolutely not interested in caring for the harkis which had fought loyally with the French forces for years. Before that, Paris had shown very little enthusiasm in honouring the soldiers from its colonies in Africa during WWII. Also, to give a more recent example, the Israeli government took more than a moment to realise that it probably wasn’t a sound decision to leave the members of the South Lebanese Army (and their families) to their own devices after abandoning once occupied territory. - I’m certain there are many more examples during the last 75 years or so that I am not aware of. Why should things be different today? Because today’s European leaders base their foreign policy/miliatry decisions on a sound ethical reasoning? I will not hold my breath.
JCS: I don’t know about Aden (although my father will - his regiment were castigated by the British media of the time and mght explain why he doesn’t bother to vote) although I do know of the pieds noir and doubtless many groups from British history. Although I moan about politics a lot, it’s very seldom that I’d actually write to an MP or officialdom and politely say, “you’re a bunch of twats.”- although I did send an e-mail to David Milliband, the Foriegn Secretary today, which effectively said “You’re a bunch of wankers!” It actually said something about “grave misgivings” “despite being a life-long Labour supporter” (cough) and so on - wild rants just don’t get read, or are passed on to the police.
That said in May1997 I got so drunk on Sekt I had to take a day off work (a hoiilday) after staying up all night to watch the victory of our glorious new Prime Minister (Swiss TV took the BBC feed live and unedited) - God I was sick as a dog - the last time I ever took a day off work due to alcohol-related drinking )it was a ‘never again’ moment that my Glaswegian co-worker (now a group leader at EMBL) “but we only had 7 bottles of Sekt” used to abuse me about being a soft English w@nker who couldn’t hold his sparkly wine…..
Anyway, from having an “Ethical Foreign Policy” when they were elected the Labour party quickly shifted its position on selling weapons to any one that wanted them (hand-held torture devices a speciality).
There was a case recently of a Nepalese man -Tul Bahadur Pun- (who’d served as a Gurkha) and won the Victoria Cross. I know Germany (for some bizarre reason) doesn’t celebrate militarism, but for background info, the Victoria Cross is the highest award the British military can give - the majority are awarded posthumously because the actions the recipient’s conduct were so brave/stupid that they were killed.
Anyway - the UK or US soldiers themselves aren’t exactly treated any better as Rudyard Kipling’s “Tommy” noted a century ago:
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
[…] To conclude this section, we return to Dan Hardie’s campaign on behalf of the Iraqi employees, which has lost none of its momentum (Mr Fact’s response to the Government’s “top-drawer twattery” at In Actual Fact contains useful links to the original calls for action and Tim Worstall’s The Fucking Wankers! mercilessly exposes the ministerial statement’s fatal flaws: “The government is in fact giving the people who have and are risking their lives to work for us nothing, no rights they do not already have under international law”). […]