Tuesday - March 24, 2009
Overweight and claim thousands in benefits - can’t work. Who do they blame? Anyone but themselves
THERE ARE 14 POUNDS TO ONE STONE. SO YOU GUYS CAN WORK IT OUT IN POUNDS FOR THESE HIPPOS.
Naturally their weight is the taxpayer problem. What else would we expect?
I wish em luck and hope somehow they’ll get themselves out of this MESS. I hope for their sake they can finally get help. But it doesn’t look good, does it?
This has to be my final post for today .... will try my best to catch up on emails tomorrow if I can.
Thanks.
They weigh 80 stone, claim thousands in benefits - and can’t work. Who do they blame? Anyone but themselves
By JENNY JOHNSTON
Last updated at 10:21 AM on 24th March 2009This family say they are unable to work because they are too fat. They blame their GP, the Government, even Simon Cowell - but not themselves
There’s something a little surreal about listening to a family with a combined weight of nearly 80 stone falling over themselves to explain how little they eat. ‘Some days I barely eat at all,’ declares Emma Chawner, daughter of the house and, at 17 stone, its lightest occupant.
‘I don’t have breakfast most days. Sometimes I don’t have lunch either, and might only have a salad roll for tea. I’m always eating lettuce and apples and stuff.’
Her dad Philip (’22 stone, but I used to be 26’) nods in agreement. ‘I’m the same. Cornflakes for breakfast, a roll for lunch and one of those microwave meals for my dinner.’
A Weightwatchers one, Dad!’ interjects elder daughter Samantha (circa 18 stone). For her part, Samantha says she ‘is always eating salads’.
Only Mum Audrey (20ish stone, but understandably reluctant to be specific) seems off message. She has been asleep on the sofa for most of our interview, but wakes up in time to raise the issue of Easter eggs.
She points out that her girls get one each every year. Both leap in with clarifications. ‘Only a little one, Mum,’ says Emma. ‘Tiny. Like those little mini eggs,’ says Samantha, holding her thumb and finger about two millimetres apart.’
She admits there might be crisps and chocolate in the kitchen cupboards, ‘but they aren’t for us. They are for our niece. You have to have those things in the house for children, don’t you?’
Now a cynic might say that there is some overegging of the pudding going on here, so to speak. And the little trio of bottles standing by the armchair of the Chawner family living room, is certainly suspect. There is Lucozade, tomato ketchup and, for good measure, the heartburn remedy Gaviscon, a veritable holy trinity of overconsumption, surely?
Normally, it would be of no consequence what the Chawners eat, or whether their ample girths reflect their diet. But the family’s eating habits - indeed entire living habits - became a matter of national debate recently when they granted an interview in a weekly gossip magazine about how their weight has been a barrier to any of them finding work.
‘Too fat to work’, screamed the headline, while the article called them real-life Tellytubbies and accused them pretty much of sponging off the State while slobbing round on the sofa all day, eating pies.
Now, of course, they are declaring misrepresentation in extremis. They don’t eat pies, apparently. In fact, the way they tell it, the family budgie would struggle to survive on what they do actually eat. And the raking in of public funds? Nonsense!
‘They said we got £22,000 a year in benefits, but Mum totted it up and it isn’t quite that much,’ says Emma.
How much do you get, then? ‘I can’t remember, but it isn’t that much. All the figures were wrong, anyway. They said Dad was 24 stone, but that was rubbish. You are 22 stone, aren’t you Dad?’
The facts that aren’t in contention are these. There are four adults living in this Blackburn terrace home. None of them work, so their rent and living expenses are covered by the State. They are all medically obese.
s their size relevant to their reliance on benefits? They say yes. Both adults claim they have weight-related health issues which have rendered them disabled.
Philip, 53, suffers from diabetes and heart problems. Audrey, 57, has asthma and epilepsy (which no doctor would link to obesity, but she seems convinced that there is a connection).
Their daughters have health issues of their own, despite being only 21 and 19. Emma is already on medication for problems with acid reflux. Samantha claims she is losing the sight in one eye. ‘I’ve got a mole behind my eye which is growing. It might lead to cancer.’
She points out, however, that she is not on any medication. ‘Yet!’ insists her father, with an astonishing glee in his voice.
The girls claim they are both fit and well, despite their size. Samantha insists that she goes to the gym. Both trained as hairdressers, but have never had a paid job. Why? Again, it’s a matter of size.
‘People don’t want to employ large hairdressers, simple as that,’ says Samantha. ‘They won’t say it to your face, but that’s how it is. I’ve been in salons and done good interviews, but look around and it’s all skinny minnies. We’re discriminated against.
‘We’re the victims in all of this. It’s not our fault we can’t work. We’ve been accused of sitting around watching telly all day, well, it’s just not true.
‘We’ve both applied for hundreds of jobs. It’s not our fault no one wants to employ fat people. Someone should be helping us, not accusing us.’
The issues thrown up here are about as controversial as they come, so it’s not surprising that people have been getting het up about the Chawners, and all they represent.
What is surprising, though, is the level of vitriol they have inspired.
When I arrive, I walk straight into evidence of it. The family laptop is open on the dining table and there is an air of hysteria in the room. Emma has fled upstairs, in tears, after discovering a message on her Facebook site saying, ‘I hope you die’.
Her sister Samantha is stomping about, arms flailing, shouting: ‘I’m not having this. It’s disgusting.’
It’s all too much for Mum. ‘If Emma has one of her panic attacks, we are done for,’ says Audrey, raising her arm but letting it flop back down. Philip’s attempts to intervene seem equally ineffective. ‘How do you send a message back?’ he asks, peering at the keyboard. ‘I’m not sure how this works.’
What’s immediately striking is how stationary Audrey and Philip are amid all the commotion. In fact, during the 90 minute interview that follows neither of them moves once from their respective chairs. Just before Audrey actually falls asleep there is a curious moment when she tries to pass one of her daughters a magazine, but cannot reach, so gives up.
‘We love TV,’ Philip had told the magazine. ‘It’s on from the moment we get up. Often I’m so tired from watching TV I have to have a nap.’
Still the girls provide enough animation for both of them. Both keep leaving the room, for fag breaks, and to have whispered discussions about future media deals. There is a documentary maker present during the interview.
Posted by peiper
on 03/24/2009 at 12:12 PM
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Permalink • Victim to Cops, I have a burglar here. Help! Cops, Hang on there,, see you in Two Days.
Ok it wasn’t 100% exactly as I wrote the headline but close enough. Cops did say two days to respond.
I don’t understand the judge saying what he did was wrong though. Don’t they have citizens arrests here in UK?
Anyway, vigilante justice works.
Interesting too that it is said here that this was the burglars first time. That we know of anyway. Sure. Now. Anyone for seconds once they learns the ropes?
Well at least the shop owner wasn’t sent to jail. That’s something anyway.
Shop owner needs to get a junk yard dog.
Judge spares businessman who kidnapped burglar after police told him: ‘We can’t come for two days’
By DAVID WILKES
Last updated at 3:38 PM on 24th March 2009A businessman who kidnapped a burglar has been spared jail after a judge accepted he was ‘driven to distraction’ by repeated break-ins.
Building firm boss Sean Preson, 41, dialled 999 after spotting four intruders attacking a bungalow he was modernising, but after being told an officer would not be sent to see him for two days, then set about catching them himself.
He and an employee captured one of the culprits, an 18 year old, that night and forced him to direct them to the home of another, aged 29, where a skirmish took place, a court heard.
The police later arrested the ‘vigilantes’.
Married father-of-three Preson was charged with kidnap, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of life in jail.
He admitted the charge, but walked free from Leicester Crown Court after being given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.
Judge Michael Pert QC said: ‘I’m prepared to treat your case as an exception.
‘I accept you were driven to distraction by people constantly burgling your premises.
‘The fact you called the police and were told they’d send someone to see you in two days, in my judgement, it would give anybody pause for thought. Anyone would be sympathetic to the position you found yourself in.
‘I cannot accept what you did was right, but whether your conduct warrants you being sent to prison, in my view, it doesn’t.’
The 18 year old and the 29 year old were each cautioned for theft. A 28-year-old woman was also cautioned, and a 24-year-old man who was charged with attempted theft was given a 12 month conditional discharge at an earlier hearing.
Preson, of Huncote, Leicestershire, was driving his family home from a restaurant last August and spotted trespassers trying to steal floodlights and CCTV equipment from the site. The building had been repeatedly raided to the cost of £4,500, during the previous six months.
Preson stopped to confront one of the intruders, who was wielding a screwdriver, and disarmed him. The man escaped in a car, two others hid and another ran off.
He then went to his home nearby and rang the police, who, he claims. told him it would probably be two days before an officer was sent to investigate.
Preson informed the operator he would handle the matter himself and met up with one of his employees, Ashley Shepherd, 25.
The pair then tracked down the 18 year old, who had fled on foot to the nearby village of Croft, said James House, prosecuting. Shepherd knocked him to the ground while Preson stood nearby holding a crowbar.
They then drove him back to the bungalow, where they questioned him and Shepherd sprayed him with window-cleaning fluid.
The teenager gave the men the address of the 29 year old in Earl Shilton, near Hinckley, who was duly dragged out his home in a headlock by Shepherd.
The teenage trespasser, who suffered minor injuries during the drama, was then bundled back into the men’s van and driven home while pleading with Preson not to tell his parents what he had done.
Preson, who did not call the police again while he had the youth in the van, was arrested the next day.
Adrienne Lucking, defending, handed the judge 40 references and testimonials in support of Preson at sentencing on Friday.
She said: ‘He accepts it was wrong to take the law into his own hands.’
After the hearing, 5ft 5in Preson said: ‘I’m a law-abiding person. We were the victims who now come away as criminals while the culprits get off scot-free.
‘We were effecting a citizen’s arrest and it’s ended up putting us through seven months of hell.
‘All I was trying to do was to protect my property. I wasn’t happy with the police disinterest and I said “If you’re not coming, I’m going to look for them myself.”
‘We only detained the youth for about an hour, whereas I was put in a cell for 36 hours.
‘I understand the lad was in fear, but I believe if someone goes on your property without you permission they should be prepared for what may happen to them.
‘I’ve always supported what Tony Martin did. An Englishman’s house is his castle.
‘I acted out of frustration. On reflection, I don’t think I’d handle it quite same way again.’
Shepherd, also of Huncote, admitted assault and was also given a 12 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 150 hours’ unpaid work.
Neither he nor Preson has previous convictions.
Yesterday a Leicestershire Police spokesman said Preson misinterpreted their response to his call.
‘We have reviewed the recording of this call and while the defendant was asked what his availability was over the next two days he was clearly told that the incident was prioritised for officers to attend that night,’ the spokesman said.
‘It was established during the call that these intruders had left the scene 20 minutes prior to the call being made and there was no immediate risk of harm.
‘Officers were assigned to deal with the incident 50 minutes after the call was received but were diverted to deal with reports of an assault, which we later established related to offences that the two defendants (Sean Preson and Ashley Shepherd) admitted to in court.
‘We do not condone taking the law into your own hands as it can have serious consequences. Four people were subsequently dealt with for the initial theft of the lighting equipment.’
Police sources confirmed none of those four has previous convictions for theft.
Posted by peiper
on 03/24/2009 at 11:21 AM
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Permalink • Monday - March 23, 2009
The unspoken truth about our language.
Over the last few days I’ve been keeping up to date on the controversy surrounding the postmaster who refuses to serve people who either do not speak English or choose not to or come to his window without an interpretor. He has taken to a country that’s given him opportunities not dreamed of where he came from. Like many immigrants before him and in another age as well, he has become something of a patriot and says he and his wife will not speak any language but English at home and especially in front of their two children, who they want well grounded in the language of this country first. Which btw reminds me of my own grandparents who were bi-lingual. It was English first and everything else after that. America first and there wasn’t anything else worth knowing about. But that’s another story and I only mention it here because I understand why they felt that way and became so dedicated to their adopted country.
So .... that brings me to the article that appear a day or two go ago by a lady named Jemima Lewis, who writes for the Telegraph.
She says a few things I had not seen in print before in just this way.
I thought you’d find her comments of some interest.
I might mention here that this may be my last post today as am having severe pc problems at the moment. Hope I can post this. we’ll see. We are also experiencing gale force winds at this time. If not, then it sure looks that way.
The unspoken truth about our language
The Sri Lankan postmaster who banned customers who could not speak English has taken an important stand, says Jemima Lewis
By Jemima Lewis
Last Updated: 3:13PM GMT 21 Mar 2009Deva Kumarasiri has paid a heavy price for his patriotism. The Sri-Lankan-born postmaster has been forced to leave his job for refusing to serve customers who couldn’t speak decent English. His stance, he said, was partly a matter of principle. Mr Kumarasiri is passionate about his adopted country: he moved to Britain 18 years ago, has taken citizenship, taught his children the words of the National Anthem, and flies the Union flag in his front garden in Nottingham. “It’s about making the effort to be part of the community where you have decided to live,” he said.
It was also a practical issue – he didn’t want the queue grinding to a halt while each customer tried to make themselves understood.
Mr Kumarasiri, who is a Liberal Democrat councillor, feels it is his duty to say these things because the white, native-born Brits no longer dare. This, alas, is perfectly true. Living in east London, I often come across council officials or health workers whose English is so shaky, or so thickly accented, that it is impossible to have a meaningful conversation. But I am far too anxious not to seem rude, let alone racist, ever to complain.
When my son was born, we were visited a few times by a health visitor who spoke at length, in a kind of Bantu-cockney dialect impenetrable to all but the professional linguist, about how to avoid cot death. I nodded in what I hoped were the right places, then looked it up in a book. I have given up trying to get an appointment at the local GPs’ clinic because it is too embarrassing trying to make myself understood – repeatedly mouthing my request into the telephone as if it were an elderly dowager’s ear trumpet.
It’s not just a question of inconvenience; in some jobs, the inability to communicate effectively can be fatal. When my sister gave birth recently, she was attended by a midwife who could not speak English. My sister tried in vain to explain that she had been in labour for four days; that her waters had long since broken; that she knew something was wrong.
The midwife wrote some incomprehensible notes, and failed to pass on any of the relevant information. Both my sister and her baby almost died. Even then, no one was rude enough to complain.
who is a Liberal Democrat counselor: Not anymore as reported yesterday.
Posted by peiper
on 03/23/2009 at 11:00 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - March 22, 2009
Magnum handguns return as loophole found in Dunblane ban. Huh? In the UK?
My knowledge of guns leave very much to be desired. And apparently so does my understanding of Brit law on guns.
I have read and been told by the natives that you can not buy guns here. Or at least, not easily unless you belong to a criminal gang.
So this article has me a mite confused on the subject.
Hey Lyndon .... straighten me out on this.
March 22, 2009
Magnum handguns return as loophole found in Dunblane ban
Fyfe: gun rights campaign
Daniel FoggoHIGH-POWERED magnum handguns, almost identical to those used by Thomas Hamilton, the Dunblane child-murderer, are being legally kept and used by firearms enthusiasts.
They are able to procure the weapons and ammunition, both of which they are allowed to keep at home, by exploiting loopholes in laws brought in to ban such guns after the massacre at a primary school in the Perthshire town 13 years ago.
Hamilton, who shot dead 16 children and one teacher before killing himself, used two 9mm semi-automatic handguns and two .357 magnum revolvers manufactured by Smith & Wesson. After the massacre, legislation was tightened with a view to outlawing all such weapons.
However, guns almost identical to the .357 Smith & Wessons, and even larger calibre handguns such as .44 and .45, are easily available to British enthusiasts who possess a Section 1 firearms certificate, which police usually issue without objection to applicants without a significant criminal record.
To circumvent the legislation, the guns are equipped with longer barrels and wire stocks at the back which together extend their length to 2ft. Only “short” firearms are banned. Another loophole is for the barrel of the .357 to be kept short and the six-shot cylinder adapted to take “front-loading” bullets. Although the guns take longer to reload, they are in most other respects identical to Hamilton’s.
Both types of gun derive from a .357 made by Taurus which is almost identical to a Smith & Wesson. They are readily obtainable in the UK at prices starting at about £500.
Confusion among police forces about how to interpret the law has turned the issuing of firearms licences into a “lottery”, campaigners claim.
Those who have kept up their interest in guns since the ban include Stephen Fyfe, who is standing for the British National party at a by-election for North East Lincolnshire council this Thursday. Fyfe, 34, owns six guns including a seven-shot pump-action shotgun and a long-barrelled .44 handgun. He said that bearing arms was a “right”, adding: “Guns are one of the reasons I am standing for election.
“I take deep offence at being assumed to be a psycho just because of what someone else has done.”
Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight, the antifascist magazine, and a former gun hobbyist who turned in his weapons when the law was changed, said: “I have watched as obsessive single men and boys with access to guns and who play around in the hate-filled atmosphere of the extreme right have sparked dozens of firearms incidents across the western world since Dunblane.
“If I was the home secretary I would be very worried indeed.”
[Drew sticks his nose in with a few pics]
Posted by peiper
on 03/22/2009 at 12:46 PM
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Permalink • DEFIANT POSTMASTER TRANSFERED ON MUSLIM COMPLAINTS, DROPPED FROM POL. PARTY TOO.
It’s late Sunday afternoon and there’s much to catch up on.
This update on the postmaster who insists ppl speak English.
Over here, a sub post office can be located in a small convenience store and that’s where our guy Deva worked.
Well, the muslim owner of the store claimed the English speaking Deva was hurting his business and asked the postal authorities to remove him.
They did.
The hero of our story says only five (muslims) complained and anyway he says people with language problems also hold up the line which is another reason for insisting on English. As well, he says if they can’t then they need to bring an interpreter with them. He also says he asked to be transferred due to abuse and threats. And we do know that is most likely true given muslim practice in the recent past.
The political party he belonged to has dropped him making two claims.
First, he is 18 months behind in party dues. Now that ain’t a very good thing and doesn’t speak well I wouldn’t think of the postmaster.
HOWEVER ... the other reason given for dropping him is that his comments DO NOT REFLECT what they believe. That is not an exact quote.
I do believe an awful lot of Brits will agree when I claim that this country has a very long history and especially over the past 30 or 40 years, of liberalism. But NOT in the sense of a conservative live and let live, or smaller govt. or liberal attitudes on freedom TIED to responsibility.
Liberalism to these folks takes on a very left wing politically correct if only we can love each other pie in the sky thinking.
That’s why they’re so screwed up and that’s why they are in the process of losing their own country.
Now I could be very wrong and simply PO’d enough over what I’ve been seeing and reading to be prejudiced in that opinion.
I guess time will tell but so far these people (the white ones anyway) remain mostly silent publically except where they may blog something but nobody is really standing up and making a serious issue of the things the subject of this post is. But then again as he has pointed out.
ONLY brown skinned people can do that and not be abused with the ‘R’ word. Although in his case the muzzies and left use other words and actions to try and silence him.
I have done a very small amount of editing for the sake of time and space. Link below.
Dispatched: The post office boss who insisted his customers speak EnglishBy Tom Harper
Last updated at 1:51 PM on 22nd March 2009The postmaster who refused to serve customers who could not speak English has been transferred to another branch following complaints from local Muslims.
Sri Lankan-born Deva Kumarasiri introduced a ban on non-English speakers last week after claiming they frustrated other customers and made his job more difficult.
Mr Kumarasiri, who moved to Britain 18 years ago, said he believed that new immigrants should learn the language and take pride in their new culture.
But he turned up to work yesterday to find his managers at the agency which runs the Sneinton Boulevard post office in Carlton, Nottingham, for the Post Office had decided to transfer him to another branch.
Last night, Mr Kumarasiri claimed that Riswan Raja, the 27-year-old owner of the shop in which the post office is situated, threatened to make his life a ‘living hell’.
He said: ‘Mr Raja is a Muslim and he is very, very angry. He told me he wouldn’t let me walk through his shop to access the post office and he and other local Muslims have started a petition to get rid of me.
‘Because of that, I decided I could no longer work in this area. I told my bosses and they have transferred me to another post office.’
With tensions running high, his bosses have banned the father of two from revealing his new location for fear of reprisals.
But last night Mr Kumarasiri pledged to stick with his controversial ban on non-English speakers at the new branch.
He said: ‘I will continue with my policy and try to do what is best for the people of Nottingham.
‘I’m not backing down. It’s only a few people who have forced me out. It’s the owner of the shop and some of the Muslim community. It’s not the people out there – they support me. Mr Raja didn’t like my policy and said I lost him a lot of trade, but I only banned five people.
‘If I could I would be out campaigning about this every day, but I have a mortgage to pay so I have to work.
‘I didn’t impose a complete ban. I told people to learn some English or come back with an interpreter. They come back with the right attitude now. It is just common sense.
‘If these people are coming into our country they should practise our language and culture. As far as I am concerned, if you can’t be British you should go home.
Because of his controversial stance, Mr Kumarasiri has also been ejected from the Liberal Democrats, which he represented as a local councillor.
The party’s HQ in London used the fact that he was 18 months behind on his party membership subscription to eject him without fuss or appeal. The local Liberal Democrat leader, Tony Gillam, said: ‘The party investigated the situation because of the comments and publicity around what he is reported to have said, and the party did not agree with what he said. The views expressed go well beyond what we can accommodate.’
Posted by peiper
on 03/22/2009 at 10:25 AM
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Permalink • Saturday - March 21, 2009
LOCAL MUSLIMS WANT HIM FIRED BUT POSTMAN WILL NOT BACK DOWN. AN UPDATE.
Last post for this Saturday evening.
This is an update to the article I posted just a couple of days ago about a postmaster at a local PO who insisted that his customers speak the language of the country they are living in.
He said people had to speak English and if unable to then bring someone with them who could, as he wasn’t going to speak another language.
He also (as you will read) quite rightly points out the sad fact that WHITE FOLKS just won’t speak out and just keep mum out of fear.
He says that the only people who seem to have any “rights” to speak are Brown people. And he damn well is.
Naturally the ones who are now bitching and calling for his sack, SURPRISE, are a few muslims.
He has also been threatened but is standing by his position.
Facing the sack and vilified by local Muslims ... but the Postman Patriot insists he won’t back down on his pro-British stanceBy Jane Fryer
Last updated at 9:24 AM on 21st March 2009Deva Kumarasiri looks remarkably unruffled. His royal-blue shirt is clean and crisp, his stripy tie is immaculately knotted, his trousers beautifully creased, his glasses polished to a shine and his mobile phone clipped to his belt in a neat, Velcroed holster.
Indeed, as he sits behind his Post Office counter, smiling through the smeared glass and dolling out stamps, family allowance payments and helpful advice to a queue of customers, he couldn’t look more professional and composed.
Which is a bit of a surprise, because he’s had a pretty torrid few days. Vilified and cheered in equal measure, he’s been in countless newspapers, on the radio and on television and has whipped up a right old storm in internet chatrooms.
Yesterday, the chairman of the local Mosque, Aurangzeb Kahn, confirmed that a petition was circulating among Muslim residents calling for Mr Kumarasiri to be sacked.
Proud: Postmaster Deva Kumarsiri wants customers to embrace British culture
Just in case you haven’t seen a paper, or the news, or turned on the radio in the past 72 hours, Deva is a Sri-Lankan-born postmaster and father-of-two.
For the past six months, he has been running the very small - you can barely move behind the counter with all the parcels, papers and Jiffy bags - but very busy Post Office in Sneinton, a particularly multicultural area of Nottingham.
He also flies enormous Union Jack flags from his home and Land Rover Discovery and, earlier this week, admitted he had introduced a rule for his customers - ‘No English, no service.’
If they can’t even be bothered to learn English, he tells them, they must go away and learn it, or come back with a translator.
The ban was certainly a major talking point among many Muslims attending prayers yesterday in an area of Nottingham with a large Urdu-speaking Pakistani community.
‘There is a strong feeling among some local people that this is wrong,’ says Aurangzeb Kahn.
(why can’t these bastards change their names or at least the damn spelling. who can pronounce this gibberish?)But Deva isn’t ruffled. ‘I don’t expect everyone to agree with me,’ he says.
‘It was inevitable that those who don’t want to be fully integrated into this country would do something about it. It’s all been quite surprising and I’m afraid I’m a little tired - it was a bit of an early start today because my mum phoned at 3am to say my face was all over the Sri Lankan papers!
‘So now I’m all over the world ... it’s extraordinary. All I’m doing is telling people if they want to live in Britain, be British,’ he explains excitedly and at breakneck speed.
‘Embrace it, be proud of it and most of all, be part of it. Don’t live your life without embracing our culture. Don’t boo our soldiers when they come home from Iraq - whatever you think of the war.
‘And don’t bother staying here without trying to learn the language.’
His comments have caused quite a stir - among his customers, who were taken aback to learn of this new policy, but also among a small handful of ill-informed locals who shout ‘idiot’ and ‘madman’ as soon as he steps out the shop, and a bunch of vitriolic internet bullies who seem to have got the wrong end of the stick.
Because startling though it is to hear anyone quite so outspoken on such a sensitive subject in 21st-century Britain, you need only meet 40-year-old Deva to realise his heart’s in the right place, even if his chat is rather relentless.
All he wants is to protect his beloved adopted country and, of course, his customers. ‘If I can’t understand what they want, then I can’t give a proper service, so I’m frustrated and they’re missing out.’
He’s right. The stream of old ladies, young Asian mums, Pakistani men with parcels and Kurds making a cash withdrawal are all happy to stand in line - while he chats and helps - with no complaints.
‘Ooh, he’s great. He’s so kind. And helpful. But how can he help someone if he can’t understand what they want?’ one says. ‘All he wants is for people to be proud to be British.’
So what is his love affair with Britain all about?
‘Ever since I was a boy - growing up in a village outside the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo and learning English at school - I have loved Britain and everything that the British left behind.
‘We still have the laws, the schools, the courtesy and the discipline. Like many Sri Lankans, I’ve always been proud to be associated with Britain and I always dreamt that one day I would come here.’
And so he did, in 1991. First, he had to sit a citizenship test, which appears to be the first British thing he does disapprove of.
‘Ah, that stupid test, you’d never believe some of the questions - like when was the Church of England established and how old do you have to be to buy cigarettes! Why do we need to know that to become a citizen? It was silliness.’
‘I’ve had a Union Jack flag flying for eight years’
Still, he passed, swapped his Sri Lankan passport for a British one and married Durga, 39, a fellow Sri Lankan. He gave up his studies in electronics to work in a garage and a warehouse, before setting up a catering company. He then trained as a postmaster and became a Liberal Democrat member of Gedling Borough Council.
‘I was happier providing a service than studying,’ he says.
Deva talks a lot about service. Service to his adopted country: ‘I am desperate to do all I can to make Britain better’; and service to his customers: ‘I love helping people and will do anything I can to do so.’
Unless, of course, they don’t speak English? ‘It’s not like that,’ he says earnestly. ‘I would never criticise people who try. If they use even a single English word, like ‘stamp’, or ‘please’, then I’ll go to the ends of the earth to help and encourage them.
‘But when it comes to those who refuse to understand the language, or make any effort, then they’re not helping themselves, so I’ll say: “My mother tongue is at home and this is not the place to use it - here we’re British.’”
But hasn’t that caused unpleasant scenes?
‘Oh no, no, no! No one has minded - they’ve all come back with translators and are still my customers. And look at the queue - I’m hardly short of customers.’
Which is true, but it doesn’t seem much comfort to the owner of the shop in which Deva’s Post Office business is based - a great glowering Pakistani called Raja Rizwan, who’s clearly furious at all the publicity (though all the news crews must have been good for business) and every few minutes interrupts with mutterings of evictions and sackings.
Deva looks thin and vulnerable and young next to him, but he also looks like he won’t be bullied.
‘I am the postmaster and I am trying to make this a better place. So whether you’re white, or black, or Asian, or whatever, we should be one nation, one community, one flag…
‘And speaking of flags,’ he rattles on, ‘I’ve had a Union Jack flying from my house for eight years. It’s the biggest you can get - this big,’ he says, stretching his arms wide.
‘And you know the funny thing? It’s a bit tatty, so I’ve tried to have it replaced, but I can’t get one anywhere - they don’t seem to make them any more - there’s no demand.’
He has a history of putting his money where his mouth is. Last year, in his role as councillor, he was so worried about all the hoo-ha surrounding rubbish collections and charges that he went out with the bin men on their rounds.
‘I thought it might help me to understand the job from their perspective,’ he says. ‘It was great fun - while it lasted.’ It was barely a day before Health and Safety officials intervened to put a stop to it.
And when great swathes of Sri Lanka were devastated by the tsunami in 2004, he masterminded a fundraising project in Nottingham, which raised enough to rebuild a small development on the island, now known as Little Nottingham.
‘We did a good job,’ he says. But while he’s done an awful lot for other people, he’s not had the best of luck himself. First, his catering business failed, then he got a job as postmaster in the nearby Carlton Valley area of Nottingham.
‘I thought I had a job for life - I bought a house and built a second, I made dreams for my retirement - but the Royal Mail shut it down. I was struggling to pay my mortgage and the bank charges went up, so I came here. But I’m not complaining.’
Standing up for his country: Deva says he is proud to be British
It’s a miracle he’s not. What with all the insults and idiots and the bigoted comments he’s had to deal with, does he ever feel he’s banging his head against a brick wall?
‘No. Never. I’m a very optimistic person, so I don’t think like that.’
But he does worry about the impact that immigrants not being able to speak the language are having on our nation.
‘We have a terrible problem in Britain today.
‘We don’t know who our neighbours are, we’re losing our sense of community, and it can only get worse if your neighbour doesn’t speak the same language, because then you get lack of understanding, and fear, and so often racism.
‘It’s all down to language. The fabric of the nation begins to unravel if we don’t speak the same language.’
Deva has equally strong views about the Government. Gordon Brown is an ‘idiot’; David Cameron is just ‘Oh no… and way too green’.
And he frets constantly about the neglect of the working classes. ‘The taxi drivers, the bin men, the nurses, the dinner ladies - they’re not being appreciated.’
So who would he like to see running the country?
‘Sir Richard Branson,’ he says brightly. ‘He’s the one person I do so admire. He’s such a can-do person. I’d love to see him sorting out our businesses and services.’
Anyone else? ‘Oh yes, Jeremy Clarkson! He’s my favourite. He’s not afraid to speak his mind, particularly on the environment. And that radio presenter… has his own show - ooh, what’s his name? James Whale! That’s it.’
Goodness, James Whale? Time to get back to the matter in hand and why Deva, an immigrant himself 18 years ago, feels he should be the one to stick his head above the parapet when it comes to Britishness and speaking the language?
He says: ‘Simple - I had to say something, because too many people are afraid to. The person who’s born here can’t do anything or he’ll be accused of being a racist, you can only complain here if you’ve got brown skin.
‘And the white man, what does he do? Nothing. He has to keep it under his clothes, or his hat, or whatever we say, until it builds up and up like a balloon, until one day it’ll explode and we’ll have riots and hatred and I don’t want that. I just want people to be proud to be British.’
‘I had to speak up because others are afraid to’He’s an unlikely hero. What you see is what you get, he has no secret agenda. He likes curries, Scotch whisky, playing with his two daughters Shahani and Heshini, World War II movies, nature documentaries and helping with the housework.
‘I like cooking and gardening, though not so much cleaning. My wife won’t let me do much because she thinks I’m a poor cleaner.’
And do they speak Sri Lankan at home?
‘Oh no! Not the girls. I want them to be proud that their father and mother are Sri Lankan, but they are British and this is their country. They have already decided they’re going to be doctors in the RAF.’
They are only eight and ten, but they will certainly get a lot of encouragement from him. He is teaching them the words to the National Anthem - ‘they should know it already, this is their country, but you can’t learn the National Anthem, or fly the flag, or you’ll upset the minority - that’s ridiculous.’
And the future? He’s made a very impressive stand, but by the end of our chat, it looks increasingly likely he won’t have a job by next week.
‘Oh, I try not to worry as things usually work out. I’ll carry on fighting for the working people. Now I’ve started trying to save the country, I suppose I’ll just have to carry on.’
And with that we bid our farewells. Me sidling past a cross Mr Rizwan (who glowers and promises ‘there’ll be a new postmaster by Monday’), and Deva, waving unconcernedly from behind his shabby counter.
I leave feeling strangely touched by our meeting. With all that chatter, he’s not someone you’d choose to be cooped up with for too long, and I’m a bit alarmed by his enthusiasm for Jeremy Clarkson and James Whale.
But Deva is also a good, kind, big-hearted man, who has that terribly rare thing in 21st-century Britain - the courage of his convictions and the confidence to speak out.
Posted by peiper
on 03/21/2009 at 05:02 PM
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Permalink • RIGHT. AS IF YOU NEED YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF NO COMMON SENSE.
AWARD FOR THE COUNCIL WARDENS who showed so little common sense and totally officious behavior. If there were truly any justice they’d be sacked not for trying to fine the lady but just for being so eFFin STUPID!
Fortunately the story has a good end and common sense did prevail but no thanks to the idiots who tried to level the on the spot fine.
What kind of standards are used these days to hire ppl who will be in this kind of position? Oh right. Lost me’ed there for a moment.
Just another very sad sign of the times I guess.
Will it ever get any better?
A pensioner vowed to go to prison rather than pay a £75 fine imposed on her for feeding birds in her local park.
By Paul Stokes
Last Updated: 2:11PM GMT 20 Mar 2009Michelina Roy, 70, was handed the on-the-spot penalty after tossing bread and left-over crumpets down for the pigeons.
Most of the food had already been devoured by more than 20 birds which had landed on the grass when she was approached by two council wardens last week.
Mrs Roy, a retired mill worker, said: “I thought they were joking. I told them I was just feeding the birds. They were very intimidating, they didn’t show me any ID to start with so I didn’t know who they were.
“I would rather go to jail than pay the fine. I am appealing it because I won’t pay it, I can’t pay it, I’m retired and have under £75 a week for my pension. I can’t afford this.”
She moved to the town from Italy 40 years ago and during her retirement has made feeding the birds part of her daily routine.
After her brush with the wardens from Kirklees Council she said she took the remains of the crumpets home with her where she put them in the dustbin.
Mrs Roy added: “I like to give to the birds because I like feeding God’s creatures and I’ve been going to that park for a while with no problems at all, it’s a lovely place to relax.
“Everyone feeds the birds, we used to feed them in Italy but I won’t do it again. If there had been a notice saying we were not allowed then I wouldn’t have done it.
“I’ve never been in trouble before in my life. They ought to be concentrating on the real litter louts. It’s more environmentally friendly for me to give bread to the birds than just chuck it in the bin.”
Her husband Marytyn, 55, a fitter, questioned whether people seen feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square were guilty of littering.
He said: “How can it be littering the park when all the so-called litter is flying off in the birds’ bellies? I’m very peeved about it.”
A spokesman for Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council said later that the fixed penalty served on Mrs Roy was being withdrawn, but gave no explanation for the decision.
He said: “She will be receiving a letter in the next few days informing her the fine has been cancelled.”
Borough Council said later that the fixed penalty served on Mrs Roy was being withdrawn, but gave no explanation for the decision.
We can hope they were embarrassed by the episode and so there was nothing to explain except they have stupid idiots for wardens. But they can’t admit that. But it really would be kind of them to just openly say sorry that they made a goof and let folks know bird feeding isn’t a crime. Jeez.
Posted by peiper
on 03/21/2009 at 04:32 PM
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Permalink • All homosexuals should be stoned to death, says Muslim preacher of hate .
Gee, isn’t that a tad extreme? A little OTT?
Oh wait, that’s why they’re known as extremists, right?
Yeah homosexuality isn’t normal behavior, granted. But stone people to death? Jeez. Is that really part of their creed or is it something they have only recently come up with since 9/11? Either way, these are some seriously demented folk living among us.
I look at these people and get that same creepy,crawly chill up my spine that I do seeing a desert roach or a large rat.
Why can’t the west wake the hell up and deport ALL this vermin and ship the libtards who support them to a Sharia ruled country.
All homosexuals should be stoned to death, says Muslim preacher of hate
By Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 12:34 AM on 21st March 2009All homosexuals should face stoning to death, a Muslim preacher of hate declared yesterday.
Anjem Choudary, the firebrand cleric who wants to see Britain ruled by Sharia law, said such a regime was the only way to fix the country’s ills.
Under it, adulterers and homosexuals would be killed by stoning. Asked if that would include anybody - even a Cabinet minister such as Business Secretary Lord Mandelson - Choudary responded with an astonishing diatribe.
Hate, hate and more hate: Anjem Choudary (centre), flanked by two cohorts, prepares to give a press conference on Friday in which he says homosexuals should be stoned to death.(seen here in their disguise so as to appear human. only approach with caution as they are known to carry the plague carrying flea.)
He said: ‘If a man likes another man, it can happen, but if you go on to fulfil your desire, if it is proved, then there is a punishment to follow. You don’t stone to death unless there are four eyewitnesses. It is a very stringent procedure.
‘There are some people who are attracted to donkeys but that does not mean it is right.’
Choudary was speaking at a press conference in London arranged by Muslim extremists to justify their protest in Luton last week against soldiers returning home from Iraq.
His incendiary remarks immediately prompted calls for him to be investigated by police. Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: ‘These statements show the depravity of this man’s beliefs. They must incite hatred and encourage terrorism, and I would encourage the Metropolitan Police to investigate them as rigorously as possible.’
The Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: ‘This is appalling. The police should look very closely at what has been said to see if there is any action they should be taking.’
Police were not at the press conference but a Scotland Yard spokesman said officers would investigate if a complaint was made.
Only last week, Choudary, a self-styled ‘judge of the Sharia Court of the UK’, was defending the shameful protests against soldiers parading through Luton after a tour of duty in Iraq.
Yet a week ago, the Daily Mail exposed fundamentalist Choudary’s student days when he was pictured swigging beer, cavorting with women and puffing on a cannabis joint - offences for which he would be lashed and stoned under his version of Sharia law. Yesterday he sheepishly confessed:
‘Yes, I was not always practising Islam. Certainly in my student days I was not a practising Muslim.’
Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammedi
Wake-up call: Omar Bakri has warned of another 7/7-style attackYesterday Choudary, 42, was flanked by two fellow firebrands at the press conference at the Express by Holiday Inn Hotel in Chingford, East London.
It started with warning from fellow hate cleric Omar Bakri, who warned that Britons should ‘wake up before it is too late’ or suffer another 7/7 terror attack.
The preacher threatened that ordinary Muslims living here would rise up and retaliate for the ‘evil’ acts of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bakri, banned from Britain four years ago, broadcast his threats from his Lebanon bolthole over a speakerphone.
In London, sitting alongside Choudary was Ishtiaq Alamgir, another ringleader of the Luton protests, who accused British soldiers of torture, rape and murder. He said: ‘Those British soldiers have blood on their hands.’
A third firebrand, Abu Abdullah, 30, branded the British Government ‘tyrannical’ and warned: ‘Do not relax, do not recline, or you will be touched by the fire of hell.’
Posted by peiper
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Permalink • Friday - March 20, 2009
false accusations of racism and religious discrimination at a primary school dominated by Muslims
I’m damn sorry she didn’t get a million. And I wonder if any of the jerks who didn’t support her got the sack. Yeah. Don’t hold your breath.
Last post for the evening and will leave you with what I think is a very interesting story, but it won’t surprise any of our BMEWS regulars.
Shouldn’t surprise anyone else either.
This crap will continue at great cost till there are none of these left in our midst. Or at least so few that they no longer present a problem to the rest of the civilized world. And that won’t be in my lifetime.
A headteacher whose health and career were ruined by false accusations of racism and religious discrimination at a primary school dominated by Muslims has won £400,000 in damages.
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:30PM GMT 19 Mar 2009The High Court agreed that the Surrey County Council was negligent in not stepping in to support the head teacher
Erica Connor was forced into early retirement through stress after governors at New Monument School in Woking turned her into a scapegoat by claiming she was Islamophobic.
But the local education authority failed to help her as its “excessively tolerant” officers were more worried about complaints to the race equality watchdog than her suffering.
ACTUAL PHOTO OF A COUNCIL MEMBERThe High Court agreed that the Surrey County Council was negligent in not stepping in to support the headteacher, and ordered it to pay £407,781 in compensation. This includes damages for psychiatric injury, loss of income and pension, medical expenses and the premature end of the career she loved.
As she left court, Mrs Connor, 57, said: “The last five years have been a long haul at great personal cost to myself and my family, so I am thrilled that justice has prevailed.
“It is so unfortunate that matters have taken so long to resolve and at such a financial cost, but I finally feel vindicated in terms of the accusations of racism and Islamophobia against myself.
“For a protracted length of time I was subjected to dreadful pressure from a small group of individuals, unrepresentative of the local community, without the support I would have expected from Surrey County Council.”
The court heard that in 1998 Mrs Connor took over the school – where up to 85 per cent of pupils were Muslim and 90 per cent spoke English as a second language – and test results improved “very considerably” for the first few years.
However in 2003 two new members – Paul Martin, a parent governor, and Mumtaz Saleem, a nominee of the local education authority – joined its governing body and tried to take it over.
(KNOW YOUR ENEMY. THEY’RE NEVER FAR AWAY AND BELONG TO THE ROP LIKE MR. MARTIN, MENTIONED HERE.)
The judge, Mr John Leighton-Williams, QC, said: “I am satisfied that they sought to monopolise governors body meetings with a view to imposing their own agenda and were prepared to do so regardless of the interests of the school and anyone who resisted that agenda.”While clearing Mr Saleem of harassment, the judge added: “Mr Saleem’s approach extended to offensive verbal attacks at governing body meetings.”
He said it was “not unreasonable” for Mrs Connor and the school’s staff “to consider that there was an agenda to convert New Monument to an Islamic faith school”.
Eventually Mr Martin was voted off the “dysfunctional” governing body but claimed he had been “removed for blowing the whistle on institutional racism” and “cited an old school document with pictures of seven children, only one of them dark-skinned”, the court was told.
An anonymous petition was circulated, “attacking Mrs Connor falsely and in vituperative terms”, it was claimed.
However the council failed to intervene or spot that Mrs Connor, who now lives in Abergavenny, was at risk of suffering stress. She was forced to take sick leave in late 2005, never to return.
The judge said that instead, council officers had shown “excessive tolerance” towards the two governors and displayed “misplaced sympathy for Mr Martin”, fearing that they were at risk of a complaint to the Commission for Racial Equality.
He added: “The lack of timely intervention in the governing body meant that Mr Martin’s and Mr Saleem’s conduct there had the effect of tearing apart the governing body.
“And these matters, together with poor response by the council, had as their effect two years of anxiety and low morale for the school staff, stress leading to a need for early retirement in some staff and Mrs Connor and disruption in the local community with, on the evidence, little, if anything, positive to show for it.”
In the world we live in today, if we can cut the PC crap for a minute, it would be entirely unreasonable and unrealistic for a person NOT to be,
Islamophobic!
Of course we are, and with damn good reason.
Definition, “PHOBIA”
“An Irrational fear of something, Not based in Fact.
No Such Thing as Islamophobia.
There are plenty of Factual Reasons to Fear Islam and its Practitioners. “
SwedeBoy
Posted by peiper
on 03/20/2009 at 02:05 PM
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Permalink • City Council forced to give squatters a list of all its empty properties.
Now this is really bizarre with a large ‘B.’
It just seems that as time marches on and new breakthroughs are made in medicine and technology and as life gets easier for many, (maybe too easy?) people are becoming more and more demanding and dreaming up new ‘rights’ and often if not mostly, at the expense of a hard working majority. The taxpayer.
I am totally lost on this dumb ass issue. I do not understand English law. I do not understand why it takes so long and so many court visits to remove people who are in a place where they don’t belong to begin with.
As screwed up as things may be in the USA in all matters where libtards have a say, and they have far too much as it is, I can’t see this sort of stupidity working in the states. Europeans scoff at us on the gun issue BUT .... since we have the means to protect our property and would be squatters know that, it’s unlikely these creeps could pull this sort of thing off with any prospect of success.
Ah but over here .... things are way different. Here’s a comment on what I’m posting and ranting about.
“They may not want to be part of the system but they certainly know how to play it - this is disgraceful and about time squatting was made a criminal offense instead of civil! A friend came back from a break to find his home (his only residence) now contained squatters and they had changed the locks so that he couldn’t get in and there was nothing the police could or would do about it!” - anne, Feltham, 20/3/2009 13:02
I can not imagine the police doing nothing about it anywhere in the USA. Or ... have I been away from home for too long?
Council forced to give squatters a list of all its empty properties
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:45 PM on 20th March 2009
A council has been forced to give details of every empty home in its area to squatters because of a legal loophole.Lambeth in South London had to hand over the list after squatters submitted a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request.
The Labour-run borough provided details of an estimated 800 properties despite council officers’ fears that the move could lead to a marked rise in squatting in the borough.
Critics will ask whether the coup could be used as a precedent by other squatters’ groups.
They accuse the local authority of ‘incompetence’ in the way it handled the request from the Advisory Service for Squatters, submitted in September last year.
An advisory service for who? They have an Advisory Service for Squatters? WTF? Should that not be “burglars? What the hell is the difference?
Liberal Democrat opposition leader Ashley Lumsden said a senior council source told him that housing officers had earlier committed ‘a grave error’ by publishing a list of all vacant properties in the appendix of a council document.
When the squatters presented their demand, the information was already in the public domain so the request could not be denied.
But the council said it had been forced to give out the information because of a legal precedent set by another council.
A spokeswoman for Lambeth Living, which manages the borough’s council housing, said: ‘When responding to FOI requests we have to operate within the letter of the law.
‘A legal precedent had already been set in response to a similar FOI inquiry to Bexley Council.
‘On challenging the request, they were instructed by the Information Tribunal that they had a legal duty to provide the address details of empty properties which were not owned by individuals.’
She added that the number of Lambeth properties with squatters had fallen over the past six months from 49 to 45.
The incident is not the first major embarrassment for Lambeth in its struggle with squatters.
Four empty blocks of flats at Limerick Court on the border of Streatham and Balham were occupied by more than a hundred people for six months until they were evicted last summer.
Two years ago at least 100 armed police officers used stun grenades in a huge raids on a property in Kennington which had been used as a squat for decades - finding several kilos of cannabis, crack cocaine and six rounds of live ammunition.
Councillor Lumsden said the Freedom of Information incident was in a long line of blunders by the housing department that has seen it overspend by an estimated £23 million, and the number of empty council homes double since 2006 to close to 900.
He told the Streatham Guardian: ‘The administration seems hell-bent on destroying public housing in Lambeth through a mixture of brain-numbing incompetence and sheer bloody-mindedness.’
Please understand my irritation and rant on this sort of thing doesn’t include those who through misfortune or health or something they honestly couldn’t avoid. Sometimes there are folks who really are in dire straights and simply find themselves “squatting” in some god forsaken building or under a bridge in a box. I am thankful I’ve been so lucky as to not know first hand what that must be like. I have to wonder about the many I’ve read about who choose that lifestyle. It’s just beyond my imaginings. Who in their right mind would want to live like that?
But there are people and the number grows if I can believe what I read, who are simply leeches. You can see them on street corners almost anywhere with hands out. Some actually have apts. or even houses to go back to after a hard days mooching. And others simply enjoy the idea of squatting anywhere they please and daring anyone to do anything about it. To make matters worse, in todays legally advanced times there are those who pander to them and find “loopholes” to make things easier for them to carry on with this kind of activity.
I don’t blame the squatters half as much as I do the idiot left wing types who make it so easy. And the lawyers who work on their behalf under the cloak of “rights” of any kind they can dream up. BAH!
Posted by peiper
on 03/20/2009 at 09:25 AM
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Permalink • Well-meaning ‘snoops’ are being recruited by the Government . It’s for our own good.
I had posted something the other day to which our Dr. Jeff said;
“Gawd, monitoring the trash. What will they think of next? Re-educating people who like soda pop? Too much sugar is bad for you, can’t have that going on.
Well Doc, as it happens .......
Your question could not have been timed better.
‘Snoops’ to nag their friends to live healthier lives
Well-meaning ‘snoops’ are being recruited by the Government to nag their colleagues, family and neighbours into living healthier lives.
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:18AM GMT 20 Mar 2009Public health “mentors” will be enlisted by the NHS to offer ‘on the spot’ advice in their local neighbourhood when they see people smoking, eating or drinking too much.
The Government hopes that the volunteers will help to get across its messages on healthy living in a new and influential way but the plans have been criticised as evidence of the creeping ‘nanny state’.
Speaking at the Royal Society of Arts yesterday , Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, said mentors could be “amazingly successful” and that he hoped that they could revolutionise the nation’s health.
The mentors, who as volunteers are not paid, are expected to work to influence the people around them, offering advice to workmates, family and friends about how they should change their unhealthy habits.
Eating a third fried breakfast of the week in the office canteen, having a drink ‘for the road’ at your local pub or chain-smoking another cigarette while waiting for the bus could all see the mentors spring into action to offer the Government’s advice.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said that it was hoped that mentors would spread the word among “people they come in contact with on a daily basis, including their friends and neighbours, and also be able to point them to NHS services, such as smoking cessation services”.
Ministers are concerned that some people are turned off by its traditional methods of advising on public health, including large-scale advertising drives such as the recent £75 million Change4Life campaign.
But critics warned that the public was increasingly being “nannied” over their health. The latest example of this was a nursery in Essex where toddlers were told to badger their parents to stop smoking.
The same NHS trust has also been accused of using taxpayers’ money to bribe pregnant women into giving up cigarettes, offering them £100 if they stop smoking.
Martin Dockerell, from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the anti-smoking charity, said: “If you get the mentoring scheme right and if you manage to turn things around so it seems that healthy behaviour is not abnormal then that can be very powerful.
“If, however, you are trying to be the only mum on the estate whose kids don’t go to McDonalds, or the only 19-year-old who doesn’t drink in the park, then that is not going to work.”
Posted by peiper
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Permalink • Thursday - March 19, 2009
SCOTS WIMPY,WHINER PILOT IS SUING BRIT. AIRWAYS FOR RACISM. mommy,mommy, boo-boo
What a difference in attitude between this wimp and the last post re. the postmaster insisting on English.
Sure, not the same kind of story but I’m willing to bet that when that other fellow immigrated to the UK from Sri Lanka he probably had to put up with real honest to gosh race problems.
This turkey suddenly discovers after 29 years that he’s sensitive to expressions like “RAGHEAD?” He has suddenly found after working for the company for sixteen years, his liberal side?
He’s sooooooo disturbed by the use of Raghead that he needed to make an issue of it? Oh I’m sure the Arabs will shower him with kisses.
Freekin wuss!
However, what tipped this whiner over the edge was hearing from a co-worker that Scotland is a welfare state paid for by the English middle class.
Now I would not be in a position to know the truth or falsehood of that statement, being a foreigner myself and so not familiar with that issue.
But I’d hardly call it “racist” would you?
Here, you can make up your own mind.
The Scots pilot suing for racism after being told: ‘Your country’s a welfare state paid for by the English middle classes’
By Ryan Kisiel
Last updated at 1:55 PM on 18th March 2009
The Daily Mail
A Scottish pilot is suing British Airways over claims he was racially abused by his English middle-class colleagues.
Captain Douglas Maughan alleges he was sent offensive letters and called a ‘Jock’ who should go back to Scotland.
He claims BA had a ‘canteen culture of racism’ and that one captain referred to Saudi passengers as ‘rag-heads’.
The trouble started when Mr Maughan, 54, defended Labour’s economic record in a letter to the staff magazine BA News in 2005.
He said an English pilot, who he had never met, started sending him racially abusive letters and emails about his views.
In one three-page handwritten letter on notepaper from the luxury Singapore hotel Raffles, the pilot said: ‘Come Separation, will all Jocks f. off to that Welfare State (paid for by English middle classes)??? Please say yes.’
Mr Maughan is taking BA, the self-proclaimed ‘world’s favourite airline’, to an employment tribunal on the grounds he was victimised racially.
He said he regularly tried to alert senior management to the abuse, but was told it was a private matter between two individuals.
He added: ‘There was a time when we set off for Los Angeles with a large party of Saudis on board, who had joined us at Heathrow direct from the VIP lounge.
‘In the cruise, my captain suddenly embarked on an extraordinary rant about “ragheads”.
‘He got the word out twice before I stopped him by explaining he was going to be short of a first officer for the return sector if he carried on.’
Mr Maughan, who lives in Edinburgh, said he was on another trip when a flight officer complained to him that there were too many Asians living in Britain.
‘The captain turned to me and said: “I don’t suppose there are many of them up your way.”
‘I replied: “Well, there’s my wife.” After that, they had the decency to fall silent,’ he said.
‘There is a canteen culture of racism, especially between pilots, where they use gross racial terms.’
The pilot, who has 29 years’ flying experience including 16 years with BA, said it is only because the airline failed to react to his accusations that he is taking it to a tribunal.
Yesterday a judge at the employment tribunal in Watford dismissed three out of the four grievances Mr Maughan had claimed against BA.
The judge ordered him to pay £4,400 legal costs for the work BA did in defending the three allegations at the pre-hearing case review.
But he ruled the claim he was victimised racially would be heard at a full employment tribunal on June 11.
Mr Maughan still works for BA and has flown throughout the world on Boeing 777s. He returned from a seven-day trip to India on Sunday.
Speaking outside the court, Mr Maughan said: ‘As a captain, if I don’t take this stand against racism within BA, then how can you expect ethnic minority staff working in lower levels of the company to do so if they feel they are being racially abused?’
He added: ‘I want British Airways and its chief executive Willie Walsh to address this issue and put a stop to it.’
A BA spokesman said it would ‘vigorously defend’ the remaining part of his claim.
Posted by peiper
on 03/19/2009 at 08:44 AM
Filed Under: • Racism and race relations • UK •
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Permalink • Too many people come here and expect Britain to change to suit them. But not this guy!
WHAT A WELCOME CHANGE. ONE LONE VOICE. NOW WHERE ARE THE OTHERS?
‘The fabric of the nation begins to unravel if we don’t all speak the same language. When I left Sri Lanka I left behind that country’s culture, customs and language. I have done my utmost ever since to be part of this country’s culture. Far too many people come here and expect Britain to change to suit them.
I’m standing up for Britain, says Sri Lankan postmaster who won’t serve migrants who won’t learn EnglishBy Paul Harris
Last updated at 10:29 AM on 19th March 2009There’s a huge Union Flag flying proudly outside Deva Kumarasiri’s house and it’s been there so long the edges are tattered and torn.
Nearby, another one flutters from the back of his favourite Land Rover as he drives to work as the local cornershop postmaster.
In case it’s not immediately clear, the Sri Lankan-born father of two – who fulfilled a dream to come to this country 17 years ago and took citizenship to make his life here – is proud to be British.
So proud, in fact, that he’s insisting all his fellow immigrants embrace our culture with the same enthusiasm as he does. Yesterday Mr Kumarasiri, who
taught his two daughters every word of the National Anthem, introduced a controversial regime at his post office counter.
If his customers can’t be bothered to learn English, he tells them, they must go away and learn it before he serves them.His bold stand against nonintegration has sent a shudder of political correctness down whatever spine the post office has these days, and infuriated some local do-gooders who accused him of inciting division among the community.
But a few minutes spent with the 40-year-old Liberal Democrat councillor are about all it takes to establish his motives are pure – and that he’s driven only by a passion for the country he loves.
‘Nobody stands up for anything in Britain any more,’ he said.
‘It’s the best country in the world as far as I’m concerned, but the great country I once called Great Britain has changed a lot since I came here.
‘All I’m doing is telling people if they want to live in Britain, be British. Don’t boo our soldiers when they come home from Iraq. Don’t live your life without embracing our culture. Don’t stay here without making any effort to learn the language. And if you don’t want to be British, go home.’
He taught his daughters the National Anthem
Mr Kumarasiri runs the post office inside a shop in Sneinton, an inner city area of Nottingham that boasts a diverse ethnic mix.
He became so weary of customers expecting to be served without uttering a word of English that he took to telling them to go away and learn the language. It’s not exactly a ban, he says, because they keep coming back anyway.
But he tells those who make no effort to speak English they will need an interpreter if he is to give them a proper standard of service.
‘Our laws are written in English; our culture is chronicled in English. How can anybody understand that if they can’t understand English? I tell them if they don’t speak the language and they can’t be bothered to learn, then don’t bother coming here.’
Mr Kumarasiri, whose wife is a nurse, likes to call his regular customers ‘duck’ and ‘dear’, following local tradition.
‘The fabric of the nation begins to unravel if we don’t all speak the same language. When I left Sri Lanka I left behind that country’s culture, customs and language. I have done my utmost ever since to be part of this country’s culture. Far too many people come here and expect Britain to change to suit them.
‘An Asian woman came in here yesterday and I insisted she spoke to me in English. She replied she preferred to speak in her mother tongue, but I told her Britain was now her motherland and she should speak English.’
As we talk in his shop, an Eastern European woman silently presents a £299 benefit cheque at the counter to be cashed. A Pakistani man – berated earlier by Mr Kumarasiri for not speaking English, smiles as he struggles with ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
‘I decided to make this stand because I think too many Britons are afraid to talk out,’ he explains. ‘If they insist on everyone speaking English they are afraid of being branded a racist.’
Mr Kumarasiri grew up in a village outside the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo and learned English at school. He always dreamed of coming to England and worked in a garage, warehouse, shops and another post office before taking over this one in Sneinton.
He met his wife, Durga, here and both his daughters, Shahani, ten, and Heshini, eight, were born here.
He took a ‘stupid citizenship test’ at which he was asked questions such as what age he needed to be to buy cigarettes in Britain, and holds a British passport.
Back in his native Sri Lanka, he said, people were still proud to be associated with their former colonial ruler. ‘Still we have the pride that Britain left behind,’ he said. ‘The laws are still there, the schools are still there. The kids have courtesy. They have discipline. Here, all that is gone. Let’s bring it back.’
Anyone taking any bets as to when the first law suit will be filed for “Hurt Feelings?”
Posted by peiper
on 03/19/2009 at 08:08 AM
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Patriotism • UK •
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Permalink • Tuesday - March 17, 2009
Households to face ‘re-education’ visits for producing too much rubbish, says Big Brother.
And you think that things are hinky in NJ?
Minds a blank right now. Maybe up too long? This really floors me. No kidding.
Alright I do understand there are damn sloppy ppl about who are pretty careless. But overall, “re-education visits?”
That just smacks of Chairman Mao and little red books and Comrade Stalin and every other sort of mind control and more social engineering.
See, I do NOT see it ending there. Once they can easily do one thing, why not a host more of other things?
Remember Red Buttons, for those old enough?
“STRAAAAANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING”
What? Ya think not?
Knock, knock: it’s the council bin snoops
Householders face ‘re-education’ visits for producing too much rubbish after microchipping of two million bins.
Steven Swinford
HOUSEHOLDERS are facing “re-education” home visits for producing too much rubbish after figures released under freedom of information laws revealed that councils have quietly microchipped 2m bins.The chips can be used to record the amount of rubbish families are throwing away. Those recycling too little will be sent warning leaflets, then visited by council officials who will advise on cutting waste.
Details of the scheme resurrect the long-term prospect of a pay-as-you-throw bin tax, which many thought had died when councils failed to take part in government trials.
Councils in Oxfordshire hope to escape controversy by using the technology to educate rather than charge residents. But officials admit it could eventually pave the way for a full-blown bin tax.
South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils have put microchips in 100,000 bins as part of a new £8m waste contract in which bins will replace sack collections from June.
The councils have also invested in sensors and weighing equipment that have been fitted to the back of each rubbish lorry.
As the bin is raised, the chip passes across an antenna fitted to the lifting mechanism that reads a serial number assigned to each property. The bin is weighed and information downloaded to a database that allows officials to see how much waste and recycling each household is putting out.
Officials will then use the data to target errant streets and households. They are also considering publishing league tables of the best and worst roads for recycling. The councils hope to increase recycling rates from 43% to 60%.
In June last year a similar trial of microchipped bins in South Norfolk failed after a series of computer problems and a 250% increase in fly tipping. South Oxfordshire, however, remains undeterred.
David Dodds, the council’s member for environmental services, said: “This will enable us to work out where recycling is happening the most and target people who are recycling less.
“Our teams will go out and leaflet first of all and in the end will call and say, ‘Are you recycling as much as you can, can we give you some advice on what you can do better?’ We’re about trying to do the best for the whole community.”
Some were worried about intrusive technology. “This is the kind of thing you’d expect from a communist state,” said Ann Midwinter, an independent councillor.
“I accept that recycling is important but does the council really need to go to these lengths?”
A survey of 200 local authorities using freedom of information laws found that 42 town halls have installed 2m microchips in their bins.
Posted by peiper
on 03/17/2009 at 01:49 PM
Filed Under: • Environment • Government • UK •
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