Taunton Marines Honoured

Despite the general unpopularity of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that our British troops are engaged in, there still exists a great affinity between the public and our armed forces.

This was proven beyond doubt today in Taunton when the local Royal Marine unit 40 Commando, stationed at Norton Manor Camp, held a parade through the town to mark their homecoming after a tour of Afghanistan.

The streets were in places lined more than eight people deep, especially as the parade route converged at the war memorial outside the Market House in the centre of Taunton. In fact, so busy were the pavements that it was quite often impossible to see anything more than the back of another person’s head.

The parade also marked the sad death of three brave 40 Commando Marines who did not return home after losing their lives in service of their country. Two of those commandos were killed when caught in an explosion in Helmand Province, while another died in a separate explosion while taking part in an outreach patrol to disrupt enemy forces north of Sangin.

40 Commando is also the regiment of reservist Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, who has been in the news lately with the recent announcement that he is to receive the George Cross from the Queen in October, for bravely jumping on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades after tripping a wired trap while out on a reconnaissance patrol in Helmand Province in February.

News crews from BBC Points West (or BBC Points Bristol as they should really be known since the vast majority of their news never covers much else) and ITV West were on hand to cover the morning’s events, while the usually non-existent local Police were out in force to mark the route.

To cheering crowds, the Royal Marines of 40 Commando were given a special welcome home and a day that they, and those that were there, will hopefully remember for years to come.

A Dedicated Border Police Force

The Conservative Party, which for some reason The Telegraph now refers to as ‘David Cameron’s Conservatives’, have announced possible plans for a new dedicated Border Police Force.

The new unit will apparently help combat illegal immigration, people and drugs trafficking along with a whole host of other niceties that cross our borders on a day to day basis. However, as is unfortunately the case with so many new Conservative proposals, this mooted Border Force will avoid the true issue and instead tackle an irrelevant one.

The immigration problems that we now face as a country have little to do with the illegal variety which constitutes only a very minor part of our total immigration burden. In fact our real problems (and they are many) lie with what is entirely legal immigration over which we no longer have any say or control.

When we became members of the European Economic Community and later the European Union we accepted the text of the Treaty of Rome which grants the ‘fundamental right’ of free movement to Citizens of the Union across member state borders.

This supposed ‘right’ to free movement was later strengthened by our old friend Directive 2004/38/EC and more recently the Lisbon Treaty (aka. The Constitution) which has now completed its rubberstamping journey through our increasingly irrelevant provincial council (aka. The Houses of Parliament) and will soon come into force once the will of the Irish people has been circumnavigated (aka. basically told to shove it).

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Rising Violent Disorder

Today brings yet more news of the growing violent crime problem in this country, with two men in Hertfordshire reportedly having been shot, leaving both lying critically ill in hospital.

This is just the latest in a long series of brutal and completely unacceptable assaults which are reaching seemingly epidemic proportions, and unfortunately becoming more common by the day.

Yesterday there was the tragic news that an eleven year old boy, Rhys Jones, had been shot dead on his way home from evening football training. Today, more shootings. Tomorrow it will be someone else.

Yet, what do the Government and the Police have so say about these incidents? Very little is the answer, and when they do eventually remark upon these cases, it is of small comfort to families like those of Garry Newlove, Evren Anil, or Rhys Jones.

I found this selective quote featured at the end of a BBC report particularly telling of the liberal establishment’s attitude: ‘He died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time’. This apparently neutral statement in actual fact suggests that somehow the blame falls, in part, upon the shoulders of poor Rhys Jones, rather than the sickening thugs that murdered him – that being in the wrong place by his decision, he died, whereas being in the ‘right’ place, he would have survived.

Like those signs in car parks which tell you to hide your valuables, lest you tempt the poor criminal to steal them; this statement makes out that the victim is as much to blame for the crime as the perpetrator.

How many more people will be condemned to die; how many more families must suffer until something is done?

Where Does The Law Stand?

Sometimes you really do have to question where the law stands in this country, and just whom it aims to serve.

Over the weekend in Bristol, a batch of pure heroin reportedly caused the deaths of two drug addicts while leaving another two seriously ill in hospital after near fatal overdoses.

Subsequently, the police issued a city-wide warning to help raise awareness by calling for all Bristol drugs users to remain vigilant and take extra precautions when injecting themselves.

Since, in fact, the use of heroin is illegal, why are the police calling for criminals to be ‘careful’ when breaking the law? Perhaps the police should also be warning people to pay special attention when they speed on the motorway, or advising would-be murders to take extra care with knives or firearms in case they accidentally injure themselves in the course of a criminal act?

Will either bed-ridden Bristol addict be prosecuted for drug abuse? Highly unlikely, since the law no longer seems to condemn individual users, and quite often indulges them in their ‘illness’ as if it were similar to a common cold which can be caught without any individual responsibility.

Comparably, if you wish to break the law by using or selling drugs, then the likelihood of any retribution is so slim as to be almost negligible. On the other hand however, should you wish to stage a peaceful protest outside the home of Government in the nation’s capital, then you’ll be met with unbridled force and the full fury of the criminal legislative system.

So long as the authorities and the Government continue to believe that drug abusers, like criminals, are themselves victims of social problems caused by relative poverty and the state’s inadequacy to nanny them into submission, then Britain’s drugs problems will only grow, and public trust in the police will only decline yet further.