WELCOME HOME PAUL FARTHING AND FRIENDS!
A day of mixed emotions. Great news after these past days of tense uncertainty that this defiant and courageous man would achieve any success whatsoever in bringing out so many animals from Kabul. This news is tempered with despair that by the same mode of transport thousands of refugees have been airlifted to Britain.
What fools we are as a nation, what misguided amateurs we elect... Ben Wallace, the UK Defence Secretary accused supporters of Paul Farthing of 'bullying, falsehoods and threatening behaviour'. If Mr Farthing and his supporters hadn't caused a stir, I wonder if he and even one mutt would have been airlifted to safety?
Mr Wallace nailed his colours to the mast when he stated that he was 'Not prepared to prioritise pets over people... You may dislike me for that. But that's my view.' Oh yes, Mr Wallace, I dislike you more than you could possibly know - and the sad thing is that you and people like you never will understand how the vast majority of us feel about animals when compared to the world's displaced...
I am incandescent with rage and frustration. Has he not reflected for a second on just how taxpayers with any sense of justice feel about this embarrassing, hasty withdrawal and what it says about the western powers and our collective inadequacy? The vast majority of true Brits are not interested in housing these incomers, they are only too well aware that another umpteen hundred acres of green belt will be quietly removed from the local plan and a corresponding amount of ghastly estates with their mix of 'social housing' quotas and ghettos will displace the badgers, foxes, barn owls and field mice. We really are fools, short-sighted fools.
Dogs and cats airlifted to a safer environment in this country are welcome, they will cost little to house in the short term and at least have the chance to be re-homed in a loving, caring environment where they will become part of the family. Umpteen thousand Afghans on the other hand will, as do all refugees, migrants - call them what you will - cost the taxpayer a fortune in housing and services. How the hell can we afford them. Our schools are over-stretched as it is, we lack pre-school care, we lack after-school care, we lack youth clubs, we lack activity centres. You can bet your bottom pound that all these newbies to our shores will be in need of trauma counselling - more taxpayer expense. (I wonder how many recipients of our enforced welcome will consider suing the government for a lack of first class accommodation on the flight from Kabul, or possibly a lack of in-flight entertainment maybe, no vegetarian food option?).
It is with despair and not a little anger that I noted Spelthorne Council in Surrey offering fifty plus stray Afghans accommodation! Why? What have the good citizens and ratepayers of Spelthorne ever done to deserve yet another financial burden? At a time when councils throughout the land plead extreme poverty there is no stopping their collective generosity to the worlds displaced. It is not our problem!! People want post offices, libraries, banks, graffiti-free shopping centres, NHS dentists, health centres with doctors you can actually make an appointment to see. This is a third-world state in everything but name. Services have been pared to the bone. We have a shortage of lorry drivers, we have a shortage of fruit-pickers, we have a shortage of nurses, doctors, care staff, social workers... the list goes on!
Do not blame our leaving the EU, blame our oversized, over-generous welfare system. Blame those recipients of universal credit who have clung to the shirt-tails of a system designed to benefit those on benefit. There are hundreds of thousands of work-shy spongers idling their way through their life and our hard-earned income. When will we see a political party that isn't hell bent on destroying everything that was dear to our nation? Parties of all political colours have spent decades replacing all that worked well leaving us with a feckless, disrespectful and selfish society determined to look after themselves and bugger everybody else! And here we are, adding yet more Afghans to our collective financial and social burden. These aspects of life never affect those elected to represent us, the poor sod in the street. An MP never wakes to damp walls in a northern tenement before making their way to work. They live in splendour, very often splendid isolation - remote family farms spread over hundreds of acres, grand mansions of grand design, it's a different world and they will never be at one with the view of ordinary people because their world is so remote, so contained, so relatively easy...
So, to Paul (Pen) Farthing, I raise my glass... well, cup of tea at this time of day! Thank you Sir for your tenacity, your commitment and your perseverance, you've made a lot of people proud. If your dogs and cats could talk I'm sure they would join me in a toast to a very fine Englishman - a rare breed in itself! Well done that man!!
