Victoria Cross and Bar

The Victoria Cross is the highest award for gallantry in battle for British and Commonwealth service personnel. It was introduced at the request of Queen Victoria in 1856 and it was her wish that it should be open to all ranks, not just officers. It is sparingly awarded for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy” It is usually presented to the recipient, or, in the case of a posthumous award, to a recipient’s family, by the monarch at a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

To be awarded the VC is a singular honour, recognition of courage above and beyond the call of duty – so to receive it twice is the mark of something extra special, so special that it has only happened three times in just over 150 years.

One such man was Arthur Martin-Leake (1874-1953) of Ware in Hertfordshire. He was a surgeon who volunteered to join the British army during the South African Wars. He was originally a trooper in the Imperial Yeomanry. After his year service was completed he stayed on in South Africa as a civil surgeon. A few months later he volunteered again, this time as a surgeon captain in the South African Constabulary attached to the 5th Field Ambulance.

He won his first VC during an action at Vlakfontein, on the 8th February, 1902. Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake went up to a wounded man, and attended to him under a heavy fire from about 40 Boers at 100 yards range. He then went to the assistance of a wounded Officer, and, whilst trying to place him in a comfortable position, was shot three times, but would not give in till he rolled over thoroughly exhausted. All the eight men at this point were wounded, and while they were lying on the Veldt, Surgeon-Captain Martin-Leake refused water till every one else had been served.

In 1903 he left the army to work as a medical officer with a railway company in India but in 1912 he volunteered for the British Red Cross in Montenegro during the Balkan War and was awarded a medal by the Red Cross of Montenegro for his efforts. He returned to India but in 1914 he volunteered once more for the British Army, this time with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Belgium.

Within a few weeks he won a bar to his original VC for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty throughout the campaign, especially during the period 29th October to 8th November, 1914, near Zonnebeke, in rescuing, whilst exposed to constant fire, a large number of the wounded who were lying close to the enemy’s trenches.

Later in the war he commanded a Field Ambulance unit and then a Casualty Clearing Station where he was once again commended for his conduct during action.

After the war he returned to his job in India until 1937 when he retired to his home in Hertfordshire but at the outbreak of WW2 he commanded a local ARP unit which was charged with organising safety and security during air raids.

He died in 1953 of lung cancer and his ashes are buried at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, High Cross, Near Ware, Hertfordshire.

The fearless BBC is never afraid to grasp nettles…

Social services and police “missed opportunities” to stop the sexual abuse of young girls in Rochdale, a report into a grooming scandal has revealed.
……………………………………………………..
It comes after nine men were jailed in May for grooming girls as young as 13.

Oh and why were these opportunities missed?

“Deficiencies” and “patchy” training of front line staff were behind the failings, the Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board said in its review of child sexual exploitation.

Ah, the old patchy training ploy, as Inspector Cluseau would say…but never fear

Lynne Jones, chair of the Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board, said the council had “responded” to the review and had “improvements” had already been put in place.

That’s right, somebody wheeled out the same robot that was constructed in 1973, called it Lynne Jones, and pressed the button marked “LESSONS LEARNED”

“…working together….sharing information….raising awareness…..staff traing…..”

Only deep down towards the end of the piece, however, does the “fearless” BBC offer up a “by the way, please move along, nothing to see here” factoid

During the trial there were demonstrations by far-right groups after it emerged that white girls were being exploited by the gang, eight of whom were of Pakistani origin, with another from Afghanistan.

OMG – those crazy “far-right” groups with their racist agenda….take to the hills……oh, wait a minute

However, Greater Manchester Police said that there was no racial element to the case. It said that the main issue was older men exploiting vulnerable young women and girls.

Phew, that’s a relief. It wasn’t because of their cultural background….it was because they were “older men”. It’s not race/culture – it’s age/gender.

Julie Bindel, however, took a different view

One youth worker in south Yorkshire told me that because religious Muslims are being pressurised to marry virgins within their own extended family networks, it means that some are more likely to view white girls as easily available and “safer” than Pakistani girls.

Moreover, she felt that the reluctance of Social Services, Police and CPS to act in these cases wasn’t really down to lack of training or “working together” – but fear of being accused of being racist. This allowed the BNP to hijack the issue which obviously made it even more toxic. Now, of course, some people are speaking out…but why were they silent for so many years?

Anna Hall made a documentary for Channel 4 about Bradford Social Services which included interviews with two mothers who said their teenage daughters were being groomed.

The explosive grooming story nearly didn’t make the shortlist. Hall had already filmed several other stories through the children’s department which she was unable to screen for legal reasons. “We weren’t looking for this issue,” she says. “It just kept surfacing. Social workers said, ‘You can’t do that story because it’s too difficult.’ What did they mean by ‘too difficult’? Too racially sensitive?”

The BNP made a big deal of this film, seeing it as a vindication. Channel 4 got cold feet, especially as the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire spearheaded a campaign to stop it being shown.

So it does seem that one thing that motivated the various agencies to keep this in the Pending file was the fear of being accused of racism even though there were clearly people in the Muslim community who were confronting it.

There are, however, a growing number of individuals within the Muslim communities who are willing to speak out against the criminals. Mohammed Shafiq, the director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for peaceful harmony between different ethnic communities, advocates better education about sexual exploitation to be disseminated through imams and other community leaders.
“I was one of the first within the Muslim community to speak out about this, four years ago,” says Shafiq, “and at the time I received death threats from some black and Asian people. But what I said has been proved right — that if we didn’t tackle it there would be more of these abusers and more girls getting harmed.”

But there also appears to be another factor which pushed it down the agenda, according to the Telegraph

Police said the victims were from “chaotic”, “council estate” backgrounds and as many as 50 girls could have been victims of the gang.

That explains it, then – not nice little middle class girls from the suburbs or twee villages. Chief Constables would scarcely get into their golf clubs before being badgered by “concerned” members of the public. But “white trash” from those chavvy council estates….maybe they were, y’know, asking for it?

No wonder these evil men were happy in their work. Their culturally influenced disparagement of these girls was buttressed by the prejudices of officialdom against the Sharon’s and Tracey’s of the white working class..

A self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one…..

The Queen wanted to know why Abu Hamza was allowed to remain in the UK spewing his hate for this country while being subsidised by taxpayers.

“She spoke to the home secretary at the time and said, surely this man must have broken some laws. Why is he still at large? He was conducting these radical activities and he called Britain a toilet. He was incredibly anti-British and yet he was sucking up money from this country for a long time. He was a huge embarrassment to Muslims, who condemned him.”

So do we ma’am, so do we.

Well now even the grand panjandrums at the highest level of the European court have told us it’s OK to extradite him to the USA.

How kind of them.

Now all the lawyers are happy (and richer), the bleeding hearts cannot accuse us of ignoring the bar of world opinion, the race relations/human rights lobby must grit their teeth and pretend to be content and this vile, revolting quivering jelly of hatred and venom is on his way to America to face his accusers in court.

Except not yet

The European Court has now ruled that these men can be extradited as well, but the Home Office can only say it will happen “as soon as possible” at some unspecified point in the future.

Why the hell do we have to wait? Why can’t he be placed on a plane tomorrow and flown across the Atlantic? Isn’t there anybody in this government with a spine?

On second thoughts that’s a stupid question. The spine was removed from our government on November 28th 1990 and has never been replaced.

No wonder these extremists despise us…

….and what sort of signal does it give to those many British Muslims who are battling to show that they can maintain their faith and remain true and loyal citizens of the UK?

But of course there’s nothing new about the spinelessness of western governments…

There wasn’t much about this outside the Telegraph, Sun and Express – I wonder why?

Army officers have told troops on duty for the Paralympics to travel around in groups after servicemen were “attacked, verbally abused and harassed” during the Olympics.

In the worst case a lone soldier was abused, attacked and beaten near Tower Hill Tube station. Police are investigating but in a city swarming with CCTV there appears to have been little progress – one wonders if senior officers have have decided that making too much of it would cause trouble with the local Presbyterian community…

Those Presbyterians – always ready to be provoked….

h/t Brendan O’Neill at Spiked

My dad lived on a tough estate in Brixton when he was a kid in the 1920s. His own father disappeared from the scene very early on so he and his brother and sisters were brought up by his mum. He recalled that quite a few of his friends were in the same position – only the phrase “single mum” had not then been invented.

Working class couples didn’t get divorced but most likely the statistics of separation might have been the same as today. There were also quite a few “common law” wives and “uncles” just living together as “partners” – another word that hadn’t been invented yet.

Wives/mothers tended to stay but some men appeared and disappeared as circumstances changed. That’s not to say that there were not lots of couples who soldiered through together and did their best even through trying times but dysfunctional relationships are not a monopoly of 21st century Britain.

My dad, through his young eyes, saw drunkenness as a familiar facet of everyday life – not amongst his peers but by watching older men staggering out of pubs as they wended their way home through the streets. And, with the drunkenness there was the violence – between men when tempers flared but, more often, the violence inflicted on the women once the men got home.

Levels of accepted behaviour were different in those days. Some men felt they had the right to slap their children and their wives but, as my dad said, there did seem to be an invisible boundary between what was acceptable – and what was not. Using your wife as a punchbag was not right – but few would dare to intervene between man and wife.

Except Ginger….

Ginger was the local bobby and the estate was his beat. He walked it regularly and knew everyone and made sure he was aware of what was going on….”intelligence led policing” is what it would be described as today….Ginger would do it by chatting to mums and kids and shopkeepers and milkmen and postmen and the local publican – and by using his eyes.

My dad said he was big and beefy with butcher’s hands. He could take a joke but was uncompromising if boundaries were crossed. Several times dad or one of his mates would be dragged by the ear to their home and parents informed in no uncertain terms of the appropriate transgression. No parent argued with Ginger – his word was law…Ginger WAS the law.

Ginger exuded authority and never walked away from trouble. He had great physical presence but dad never recalled him actually hitting anyone…..except when some wife had been used too often as a punchbag by her beer sodden husband or “uncle” – then there followed the same ritual.

Ginger would appear outside the house or block of flats, take off his jacket, fold it neatly and place it on the ground. On top would go his helmet and truncheon. He would then roll up his sleeves and go up to the front door and announce “Police – open up”. If nothing happened he would kick it open. Once inside he would hold a fairly one sided discussion with the man. This usually entailed, from visual evidence observed over the next few days, beating six bells out of the man with his bare fists. Ginger would then reappear, put his jacket and helmet back on and proceed down the road in his usual slow ponderous fashion without saying a word.

Nobody thought of going to the police station and complaining. It was rough street justice sanctioned by Ginger’s uniform.

Was it right?

Did it end domestic violence? Probably not – but maybe the thought of being at the receiving end of Ginger’s fists might have made some men hold back their punches…

Does violence resolve violence? Who can tell….

But I do know Ginger’s behaviour made a big impact on my dad, as a youngster, in terms of showing that bad actions could have unpleasant consequences – a kind of down on the street education in the realms of ethics….Ginger as the avenging angel…

It’s easy in our supposedly more enlightened culture to be very sniffy and disapproving of how Ginger went about things – but I suspect that a lot of us feel that in an imperfect world it might be comforting to know that Ginger could well be coming round the corner…

BTW…that is not Ginger in the pic, it’s just how I imagined him to look like…

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) says student attendance at London Metropolitan University is not being monitored and that many have no right to be here.
As a result, the university will no longer be allowed to authorise visas

Cue for the BBC to get out the onions with tear jerking quotes from bosses at London Met and, naturally the National Union of Pizza Eaters and Beer Drinkers (aka Nat Union of Students – funded by us the taxpayers of course…)

Cobblers

The UKBA says London Metropolitan University had “failed to address serious and systemic failings” identified six months ago.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said London Metropolitan University had failed in three particular areas:
• More than a quarter of the 101 students sampled were studying at the university when they had no leave to remain in this country
• Some 20 of 50 checked files found “no proper evidence” that the students’ mandatory English levels had been reached
• And some 142 of 250 (57%) sampled records had attendance monitoring issues, which meant it was impossible for the university to know whether students were turning up for classes or not.

Fact is that the London Met (nothing to do with the prestigious University of London) is the worst performing university in the UK and has been relying on foreign students to subsidise it’s inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Hence it’s willingness to turn a blind eye to either the legal status of foreign students or their attendance. Indeed I would not be surprised if the rolls at London Met are as full of dead people as the Chicago Electoral Register…

…and all that stuff about no other uni in the same position? Biggest porkie pie of the year – most of the low level performers are at it. London Met was selected pour encourager les autres. Hopefully at a large number of pseudo universities urgent e mails are being sent to staff presently sunning themselves on beaches across the globe telling them that the gravy train has reached the buffers and that from the start of next term they must start keeping proper registers instead of making them up.

Even better maybe once the word of this crackdown spreads across the globe there might even be a loss of income for these institutions. Some of the phantom departments could close….OMG….those that remain might have to start doing some actual work!!!!!!

Trouble is at the trade union for the great and the good the BBC is pretending to be shocked but is actually full of glee for nothing gets BBC mouths salivating better than an issue containing the words “student” “illegal” and “immigration”. Already, no doubt, documentaries are being commissioned and a foreign student storyline inserted into “East Enders”…

So – will the government stand firm?

Probably as firm as a meringue…

The UK Daily Mail has been very pursed lipped about Prince Harry’s naked romps in Vegas. Naturally, unlike the very low class Sun, it has not published the actual photos – after all the DM always steers clear of suggestive stories/pics about women (see its websites regular right hand sidebar…lol..) However it has kept the story on the front burner to highlight editor Paul Dacre’s air of disapproval and today we learned that no less a figure than Prince Charles will be sorting Harry out…

Charles, we are told, is going to have a serious chat with Harry

Although they have already spoken over the phone, Harry will be asked to explain in person how he ended up playing a sleazy game of ‘strip billiards’ with a group of strangers in a hotel suite.

Great news….and maybe Harry will then ask Charles to explain how he ended up regularly bedding his ex girlfriend Camilla while still being married to Diana.

There is a huge amount of moral blue water between a bachelor having some fun with a bunch of pretty girls and a husband quite happily betraying his own wife…..

Confession time….I was a cynic and doomster about the London 2012 Olympics. In 2005 I was hoping Paris would get the time bomb and we could avoid all the expense and inconvenience. It seemed a classic piece of Blairite New Labour grandstanding, as empty and vapid and meaningless as the Millennium Dome.

In the weeks beforehand my pessimism meter dial hit the red zone as transport unions blackmailed extra bonuses, private security companies failed to deliver and predictions of traffic chaos and empty seats filled the pages of the Daily Mail eager, as always, to always play Cassandra.

Then it all changed. An brilliantly orchestrated opening ceremony that captured the essence of our quirky, eccentric, self deprecating British spirit segued us into a fortnight of sporting drama. No transportation problems, no security breakdowns, no violence, just day after day of pure unadulterated enjoyment.

We were on holiday in Italy for most of the time so just got to see bits and pieces of the action from screens in the restaurants and bars surrounded by Italians and Germans. Imagine how good it felt to gloat (inwardly, of course) as our sportsmen and sportswomen piled on the gold medals….

And, after that magnificent Olympic cauldron was finally extinguished and the Mayor of Rio took hold of the Olympic flag I suddenly remembered……..Mitt Romney and his cheerleaders at the US conservative blog Hot Air. Even with the rest of the world praising London 2012 resident blogger Allahpundit was sustaining his glass half empty schtick, pursing his lips and flaring his nostrils at the closing ceremony…..

Sorry, Allah (as I commented at his post), I think the rest of the world will pay more attention to the response of the Aussies whose 2000 Sydney Olympics have, up till now, been regarded universally as the benchmark of success. Down under they rate the 2012 Games as even better than Sydney and, coming from Oz, that is praise indeed.

As for the closing ceremony it is always more of a party atmosphere and the audience and the athletes in London obviously enjoyed it. In lengthy celebration there will always be low spots and Russell Brand fits that bill admirably. The rest of it, however, was great fun.

But then Hot Air has systematically waxed eeyore over the London Games. That might be because of an inbuilt tendency to regard anything outside the USA as weird/outlandish but it is more likely to be due to the fact that Atlanta 1996 was not one of the best summer Olympics or that Salt Lake 2002 winter Olympics had to be rescued from a bribery and corruption scandal.

As for Mitt, is he man enough to eat his own words and offer his congratulations to Lord Coe, the man who organised the best ever summer Olympics, and to the British people who embraced the Games with a fervour unmatched in modern times?

Just askin’ as our American friends might say…..

My Tea Party friends in the US have never held Mitt Romney in high regard. Until the autumn of last year (coincidentally when the Republican presidential primary campaign began) his public rhetoric against the Obama administration was strangely muted and he has always retained an aloof distance from the tea party.

His ascension to the probable GOP nomination was strangely lacking in public warmth from ordinary voting Republicans. But it was certainly well organised with legions of surrogates doing their very best to undermine potential rivals even before the 2008 presidential election was over.

Romney didn’t win the campaign with love, but he did win it with money – and the support of a seedy coalition of GOP “consultants/strategists” , RNC hacks and those Washington/New York “conservative” media pundits apprehensive of the tea party and the new media which was beginning to break the old news monopoly.

But when I heard that Romney was coming to Britain ready to build bridges I thought maybe the guy had a bit of steel in his backbone

Members of the former Massachusetts governor’s foreign policy advisory team claimed that as president, he would reverse Mr Obama’s priority of repairing strained overseas relationships while not spending so much time maintaining traditional alliances such as Britain and Israel. …….
……..The two advisers said Mr Romney would seek to reinstate the Churchill bust displayed in the Oval Office by George W. Bush but returned to British diplomats by Mr Obama when he took office in 2009. One said Mr Romney viewed the move as “symbolically important” while the other said it was “just for starters”, adding: “He is naturally more Atlanticist”.

Then I read this

But he told US television there were “disconcerting” signs about Britain’s readiness. “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” he said. “There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
Nonetheless, Mr Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. “Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?” he asked. “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

For crying out loud – if that’s his way of building a bridge I think I would rather deal with some fruitloop from Iran….at least you know the guy is a viper right from the start.

If he knew us better he would realise that it is in our very nature to moan and complain until the event actually starts. We did that with the royal wedding and the diamond jubilee. Indeed a lot of us were never that enamoured of hosting the Olympics anyway. But now the thing has arrived our enthusiasm has already started to show….witness the crowds in every village and town to greet the Olympic torch. Why didn’t Romney’s crew do some research on that?

…and maybe Romney (as well as Allahpundit at Hot Air) forgot about the 1996 Atlanta Olympics

If International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch’s address to the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games is remembered at all, it is for his unwillingness to bestow Atlanta’s Games with the honor of “the greatest in Olympic history” – that coveted rhetorical flourish lauding the host city’s organizing efforts. Unbridled commercialism, poor and unreliable public transportation, a deadly terrorist attack on Centennial Olympic Park: such significant failures shaped Samaranch’s verdict that these Olympic Games were “most exceptional,” but not “the greatest.”

Romney’s gaffe about the London Olympics, bad mouthing them even before they start is in itself of little consequence in the great scheme of things. But it does tell us something about the man…. say what you like about Sarah Palin she knows the difference between being forthright and showing good manners. Maybe Mitt Romney is really Edison Carter….

Max Headroom was shown to have been created from the memories of Edison Carter. The character’s name came from the last thing Carter saw during a vehicular accident that put him into a coma: A bar with a sign warning of low clearance, marked “MAX. HEADROOM: 2.3 M”.

Mitt Headroom, anyone?

I know we should be concerned about Syria, the euro and lots of other problems across the globe. But in reality it’s almost always local issues, literally at street level, that get us fired up…maybe because we can actually get a handle on what is happening and the direct impact.

Hence my post on January 26th 2011 was a cri de coeur – yet incredibly the gods smiled upon me..until a few days ago…

When we drive out of our road, Allyington Way, we almost always turn right into Street Hill because that way leads to the main road (B2036) and the M23 or Crawley.

A few months ago turning right would have been a little more difficult

Now once we have turned right we drive about 150 yds downhill along this road to the T junction at the bottom

Previously we just hoped and prayed we wouldn’t meet another vehicle coming up the hill

It’s quite a busy little hill because it acts as a cut through to avoid traffic on the main road so you can see how pleased the residents of Allyington Way were when West Sussex County Council published a notice saying they were putting down those double yellow lines to ban parking at any time.

A bit draconian to do that, you might ask?

I don’t think so.

For many years during weekdays only the odd car parked on Street Hill. At weekends church users might fill the road up but rarely for longer than a couple of hours at the most.

The parking problems came with the construction of a nearby industrial estate by the northbound Jct 10A of the M23. Not only did several employees park all day on the hill but it also appeared to be become regularly used as a storage area for vehicles from the car dealership on the estate. Then at other times it was clogged with Sky vans, either from the industrial estate or maybe from meetings at a nearby hotel. The volume of parking often turned the hill during weekdays into a virtual one way street. The double yellow lines have stopped that. Where these vehicles have gone is unclear (a handful still park in the unlined area further up) but they do not appear, on weekdays, to be parking locally.

You can therefore understand why last week we were astonished to receive a notice from West Sussex County Council saying they were going to remove most of the double yellow lines in the first and third pictures above – thus allowing the return of the inconsiderate parking seen in the second and forth pictures.

Straight away we realised that the restoration of the scene in picture 2 would raise serious issues.

Firstly the pedestrian slope onto the pavement on the east side that is just to the north of the entrance to our road would no longer be protected by yellow lines. Since the upper west side of Street Hill has no pavement this means that, as before, pedestrians who need to cross from west to east might well have to squeeze past parked cars and possibly miss that slope completely…hard luck if you are blind, a wheelchair user or have a toddler in a pushchair….or the grass verge is muddy.

Indeed it would really be going against official guidelines because, at present the double yellow lines opposite our road help to reinforce Para 217 of the Highway Code

217: DO NOT park your vehicle or trailer on the road where it would endanger, inconvenience or obstruct pedestrians or other road users. For example, do not stop
• opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction, except in an authorised parking space
• where the kerb has been lowered to help wheelchair users

I know that before the lines were painted weekday parking – and some weekend parking – made a mockery of Para 217 yet the WSCC proposals will allow those inconsiderate drivers to inconvenience local residents once again. It just seems odd that WSCC are quite sanguine about this.

I contacted WSCC and our local WSCC elected member, Councillor Richard Burrett, to find out why. It turned out that a number of people living in Saxon Road about 500yds up the hill had claimed that vehicles would move up closer to them during the week and park in and around their road – what they called “displacement parking”.

Fair enough, I suppose. The sensible option would have been to monitor parking for maybe one year to see if that did happen and then make a further judgement on the results. But for some reason there was panic in County Hall and an amended proposal to black out the lines put forward as a “compromise”

This rather cack handed response has made us very unhappy and we are asking ourselves why a so called compromise would actually restore almost everything we had complained about over several years – and why the views of those living further up the hill should carry such weight.

The joke of it is that there is no evidence that on weekdays there has been any “displacement parking” further up the hill and very little at weekends. This is just a big fat nothingburger.

I’m sorry, WSCC, this is simply not good enough. The people of Allyington Way are very unhappy that the residents of another road appear to be able to convince the county council to amend a Traffic Regulation Order by mere speculation rather than systematic monitoring over a twelve month period.