Born in Bethlehem, deported to Rwanda

It is coming up to Christmas, that time of year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who fled Israel when his parents saved him from The Massacre of the Innocents. The thing is, when his parents sought asylum in Egypt, they did so illegally, being required to remain so Jesus could be murdered along with others of his age.

Today, if his parents tried to seek asylum in the UK, they would have to cross the channel illegally to do so, risking death. The reason for this is because there is no safe and legal route for many to come here who are seeking asylum  That is, or course, if they wanted to come here. Other nations take in more refugees than we do.

PMQs yesterday and NHS workers striking (or not in Scotland)

PMQs yesterday could have been better. Keir Starmer used the example of one person on his second question but did not mention that strike action may be averted in Scotland where nurses are voting on the pay deal that has been offered to them.  If Alex, the person Starmer mentioned in PMQs lived in Scotland, his operation would not be cancelled by strike action, an issue later mentioned by the SNP. Sunak mentioned COVID as being the reason for the NHS waiting lists, Starmer responded with the report the government commissioned which cited a decade of underfunding as a reason for the care backlog. I did not hear Starmer mention how staffing shortages are causing operations to be cancelled especially as Sunak blamed strikes for this.

Eating disorders were mentioned later by Fabian Hamilton, delays in mental health treatment being reported in the media as causing children to be put into care. 

Ambulance waiting times were brought up as well and Sunak implied that there were no issues before the pandemic, but the issue of ambulance waits being too long was discussed in Parliament in 2016 and the issue of some patients waiting more than 24 hours for an ambulance was raised by the media in 2018. Issues of patients waiting in ambulances for too long before being handed over to A&E was also discussed before the pandemic, this article being from 2017. 

Basically, there is an argument that these strikes are political, though those making the argument are blaming the left. When it comes to NHS workers, the strikes could be stopped, as they have in Scotland, by the government talking to the unions. That they are not, is a political decision because they hope to make Labour look bad over this.  I guess those working in the NHS (like me) should be glad that we have been clapped.

Prince Harry is a credit to our nation.

My wife and I had a bit of a disagreement about how Harry and Meghan Markle are being portrayed in the media following the Netflix documentary.  For the record, I am not going to watch it and have no interest in doing so.

I have commented on the double standards shown to the Duchess of Sussex before.  To put it simply, it appears racist when one person who is white is commended for actions that one person who is not white is condemned for the same actions.  Such things are not the fault of the rest of the Royal Family, but rather is the fault of the parts of the media that engage in it.  The media have not been nice to the Royal Family and action taken about this when their privacy has been intruded upon is right.  I understand that The Royal Family cannot comment each time an inaccurate article is published because they would constantly be firefighting.  However, they can and should comment when they see racism.  The inaction of the Royals to condemn the double standards which many see as racist is inexcusable.  

I do not think that King Charles or Prince William would intentionally be racist, but as seen with the recent case with Ngozi Fulani being asked by Lady Susan Hussey where she was really from, people can be unintentionally racist and as seen with Prince Harry when younger, can cause offence.  But too many people have been the victims of double standards, an example is how ethnic minority police officers have faced such issues.

There are calls for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to be stripped of their royal titles, but many of these people are happy for Prince Andrew, the man who did not meet or have sex with a women who had been taken from a state where sex with her would have been considered under age to a nation where sex with her could be legal, to remain a royal.  If Prince Andrew is stripped of his titles first, then we can consider the same for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

In addition to this, there are people who have claimed that Prince Harry hates Britain. This is a man who has served on the frontline for our nation. If he hated it, he would not have served it, or promoted The Invictus Games after he left. Like all those who love their nation, there will be things that he wants to improve. I consider myself to be patriotic and feel that our nation can and should be better. 

Those who can remember are aware how stories about Princess Diana were leaked to the press. People in the media who deny that negative stories have been leaked, are either ignorant or are lying. I suspect that there may be some truths in at least some of these stories, as we saw with Princess Diana, but considering these stories tend to be about Meghan rather than Harry, it appears that even in the couple, one gets an easier deal than the other from the press.

The bottom line is that too many in the media have shown appalling double standards in dealing with the couple. I disagree with the way that the couple are making money from their experiences, but they appear to have no fair way of getting their side of the story out. So far, at least, it appears that some allegations will not be addressed in the documentary, but I doubt the couple will be credited for that either. 

Meet Cute

First of all, my son is free. He has tested negative and is out of isolation. We consider his room to be high risk and will talk about decontamination measures later this week. He appears to be in a better state of health than my daughter who has recovered from the non-COVID virus that she may have caught from my wife.

I watched Meet Cute with my daughter. I really liked it. It was sick and twisted and funny. I doubt I would watch it again, but I would have had no issues if I had paid to watch it in the cinema.

Anyway, time for bed.  Good night all.

The NHS since 2010 and it’s ability to do things now

A Government-commissioned paper has pinpointed the budget squeeze that the NHS has been under as the key reason for service’s loss of capacity. This was carried out by The Kings Fund and basically says what I and many others have been saying for years. 

You get what you pay for and if you do not fund the NHS properly, it cannot compete with heath outcomes when it was better funded, or of other systems which are resourced better. 

The house of ill

My son is still in isolation, my daughter may not be able to attend her Sixth Form College tomorrow and I may be coming down I’ll as well. My wife, though unwell herself appears to be improving. We hope that my daughter has what she has, as opposed to my son, but if she comes down with COVID, the odds are that I will get it, which means either my wife looking after us all, or the end of isolation. 

I have been working as I am hoping to be off next week, initially at work, but this was freezing and once I had finished the work that has to completed there, I came home to work from home. 

I did get to watch the football from yesterday, well the highlights, and while I think that we should have had some decisions go our way, we played well and can leave the tournament with our heads held high 

And it is snowing. It has settled, but when I took Leia for her walk, it was starting to melt. Let us see if she likes playing in the snow when it is daylight.

The plague, again

My son has contracted COVID again for the third time, bringing it into the house for the second time. One of his friends on his school trip came down with COVID but that was a while ago so he must have escaped that and instead, got it off someone else.  I have noticed that with this latest variant, people have symptoms for a few days before testing positive. He is now in his room with unlimited access to Netflix on the iPad of my wife and is in isolation again. 

My daughter is not 100%, and my wife herself is on the mend from a cold herself. Other that a minor sore throat, I am fine in myself and have had a nap so that I have the energy for the Christmas Party at work. With no symptoms, I am ready to go!