Britain’s schools, trains and hospitals are full… where can we put Calais Jungle migrant ‘kids’?
'Come one, come all' is not a helpful policy when there's overcrowding in all of our public services
IN all the years I did the daily commute on the London Underground, I would feel disgruntled if I had to stand for more than a few stops.
Now? At best, the experience is deeply unnerving, at worst, genuinely frightening.
Last week, I queued to get on to the platform, saw ten trains come and go before I could jostle my way into prime position, then curved my posture into the shape of the closing door.
At the next, equally jam-packed station, a man crouched down on his haunches so he could squeeze in between our legs.
If we’d been cattle, there would be a law against such dangerous overcrowding.
London feels full. And it’s the same story in every major city across the UK where “rush” hour now means virtual standstill on both public transport and the roads.
Equally, all too many state schools are bursting at the seams as they juggle the complexities of ever-expanding class sizes with an increasing number of pupils who don’t speak English as a first language.
As one teacher put it: “We’re not teaching, we’re crowd-managing.”
And if, like me, you’ve had cause to visit the A&E department of a major NHS hospital recently, you’ll see overworked staff doing their best to deal with more walk-in patients than ever before.
I watched as, with unerring patience, they struggled to deal with several arrivals who didn’t speak a word of English and couldn’t produce any identification or proof of address.
Of course, none of these inconvenient facts troubles the bleeding hearts who blithely advocate a “come one, come all” policy that will have little effect on those of them who have the money to circumnavigate such inconveniences via private healthcare, schooling or transport.
Like Leonardo DiCaprio preaching to the rest of us about global warming before boarding his private jet, they love to virtue-signal their caring credentials before hopping in their 4x4 and driving little Jocasta to her posh prep school or private orthodontist.
We can perhaps forgive or dismiss them as luvvies living in a rarefied world but when elected politicians start spouting the same hypocritical platitudes, it’s another matter.
So thank God it’s only Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary who will no doubt be collecting her lucrative state pension by the time Labour are allowed anywhere near power again.
Apparently, the call for “child” migrants to be age-assessed via dental checks makes her “ashamed of being a British person”. Sigh.
Diane, if you remember, had previously criticised Labour colleagues for sending their children to private schools, then promptly did so herself because, “I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd”.
No overcrowded, inner-city state school for him.
I don’t have a problem with private schools; indeed my youngest attends one. It’s the “do as I say, not as I do” hypocrisy that sticks in my craw.
Needless to say, private schooling isn’t an option for the majority of her constituents in Hackney, where 36.8 per cent of children are affected by poverty — almost double the 20.1 per cent rate of England as a whole.
Yet their MP seems to be suggesting that a never-ending stream of obviously economic migrants should be allowed in — unchecked and to the detriment of genuine child refugees fleeing a warzone — or face accusations of treating them “like cattle”.
And where will they end up? In the already overcrowded state schools, hospitals, buses and trains where those who don’t have the luxury of choice already feel like cattle themselves.
So, Diane. As the rest of us have to provide proof of age for our child to buy so much as a discounted rail ticket, it’s perfectly acceptable to expect that anyone claiming to be a child but looking suspiciously otherwise should, in the absence of paperwork, undergo a dental check before being allowed in the country.
Besides, as anyone practising joined-up thinking will tell you, allowing them in unchecked will simply drive even more young men into the hands of ruthless people-traffickers before they then embark on the journey to cross several perfectly safe countries to reach the UK.
It isn’t about race, religion or xenophobia. It’s about numbers.
And unless we’re planning to build hundreds of skyscrapers on Exmoor, the Highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, then just where are we going to put them all?
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Au natur-hell
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Using the picture at the top of this column, I was very excited to be told by how-old.net that I looked 46.
Then I remembered that I actually was 46 when it was taken eight years ago. So, in the interests of accuracy, I uploaded an “au naturel” image taken yesterday at the kitchen table and...
Seventy-flaming-eight.
So, dear reader, the fight back starts here.
While I flatly refuse to go under the knife in the pursuit of cosmetic “improvement”, I fully intend to join an ever-youthful Kylie Minogue et al who swear by various non-invasive treatments to help them hold back the years.
Or, in my case, to resemble my actual age rather than Gollum’s older sister.
Watch this space...
Tricks and retreat
ONE in three parents would prefer it if Halloween didn’t exist.
I’m one of them.
What started as a gentle “trick or treat” outing involving young children dressing up as witches has turned into full-scale doorstep warfare as hordes of marauding teenagers wearing everything from killer clown costumes to Scooby Doo (go figure) ring the doorbell long into the night.
Hell, last year, someone even turned up dressed as a corn on the cob.
It’s all become hideously Americanised and, therefore, while I’m perfectly happy for my youngest and her friends to go out and inconvenience others on Monday night, chez Moore will remain in total darkness as a deterrent to the attentions of unsolicited visitors.
And if any of them are brave enough to consistently ring the doorbell and stir the creature that lies within (me without make-up) then they’ll truly know what scary is.
Life imitates art
HIGHGATE Mums is a new book of comments overheard by author Dan Hall as he mingled among middle class “ladies who brunch”.
“There is far too much truffle oil on my pizza,” was one. Another: “It’s not a jacket, Mummy – it’s called a gilet.”
For those of you who don’t remember the early days of The Catherine Tate Show, one of her characters was called the Aga Saga woman, a spoof on posh people (check it out on YouTube).
In one scene, she goes into a state of shock when a Northern nanny has to look after her children, in another, her son is mocked for mistakenly bringing Wensleydale cheese to his school’s “Parisian picnic”.
Clearly, 12 years on, it’s no longer a spoof and life is imitating art.
- A RECORD number of school playing fields were sold off this summer by local councils trying to raise funds.
Remember this the next time you hear the Government warning of the spiralling cost of a nation in the grip of increasing obesity.
- MEMO to Prince Andrew, who reportedly wants daughters Beatrice and Eugenie to be given “a bigger role”.
Here’s one: It’s called a full-time job.