Family

I have been to visit my mother. The children made a choice not to go over the issues with Leia from before, though my mother now says that she did not let Leia off the lead and instead put the lead down for 30 seconds.  Not sure what she meant by that though.  She did get to see Leia though whom she has missed as well.

We did visit my in-laws as it is around the birthday of my father-in-law.  Have watched Strictly as well.  It is good to see Tony Adams improve, loved his dance, even with the Arnold Rimmer sock suspenders!  Hopefully Arsenal will perform better tomorrow.  

Jesus was an undocumented child refugee. Should he have been deported?

I want failed asylum seekers to be quicky deported to Rwanda and I want anyone who crosses the channel illegally to be deported, but there is a caveat. I also want safe, speedy and legal routes for refugees to come here first. 

I have treated asylum seekers. Too many have no safe and legal route to come here and thanks to government cuts, the waits to process their applications, be they here or in the nation they flee from, take too long. I am not going to say that all the cases should be taken in as some of the stories, in my view, do not justify asylum here, but loads do. We have a speedy safe and legal route for refugees from Ukraine, many of whom were in a safe country before coming here), we can and should have one for those seeking asylum from other nations such as Afghanistan and others. I do not want a system where Jesus (who was an undocumented child refugee when his parents fled the Massacre Of The Innocents) would have been deported to Rwanda, if he was able to overcome the barriers to get here!

The argument that we cannot afford to take them in, from a government who wishes to help the rich to get richer when others are getting poorer is wrong.  Worse, it is an argument that is designed to spread hatred and division while distracting from the real reasons that we have increasing levels of poverty and hardship.

If we can get a speedy safe and legal framework to take in refugees from Ukraine, there is no reason why we cannot have one for refugees from other, non-white, nations.

Safeguarding democracy

Earlier this month, or possibly last month, I had a discussion with my daughter about trying to safeguard democracy.  She thought that I was being melodramatic when I mentioned that Hitler was democratically elected. I forgot to mention that Putin was elected in a system far fairer than is present in Russia now.

Democracy is only as safe as we allow it to be.

Ambulance waiting times

On Friday, I tried to arrange an ambulance for a patient who was in pain following a fracture to their back. I was initially told that the wait for the ambulance would be 28 hours but later was told there was no ambulance that could be sent out.

This never happened in 2010 when the Tories took over the NHS, this is down to the way they have mismanaged it. 

Leia is two

Our dog is now aged two. My daughter bought her a present, which Leia loved, but the rest of us just spent time with her. My wife however was not present over most of the weekend so missed the actual birthday, and Leia woke up outside our home on her big day. 

 

On that topic, I am not sure what is going to happen with my mother and the children. She had rung up yesterday asking if the kids would speak to her, but they have been quite busy. She did say that she was sorry she upset them, but when I talked about her letting Leia off the lead in an area where she may not have been able to get her back, she snapped at me and hung up. It may be that when I next see her, I will need to go alone, but I will see if the kids are happy to visit her later this month.

North London is red

Yesterday, I watched the match with my mate Tony.  My wife is at a course so was not able to join us.  What a match.  I am biased with Arsenal winning but the confidence with which they played at the start was amazing. Spurs managed to dent that confidence once they started to play and the game could have ended in a draw or even a loss for us.  However, we were fortunate with our opponents going down to ten men in a challenge that was probably one that required a caution rather than a sending off.  Hopefully this will fill us with confidence before our next two games, the one against Liverpool being the game that I am most concerned about.

Victoria's Secret

Listened to this song last week and loved it.  I actually listened to a cover first of all, but I have been sold on that and the original.