I WRITE this on a Monday. Two items have caught my eye in today’s news.
Yesterday, a woman was deported to Singapore. She has no family there, nowhere to live and just £12 in her pocket.
She married an Englishman 30 years ago and has children and grand children here. This sounds wrong.
Meanwhile, the tax regime for agency workers is about to change, but only for those working in the public sector. So agency workers like nurses will now prefer to work in the private sector. This too sounds wrong.
It is difficult to be proud of a country where such things happen.
Why do they sound wrong?
I suspect deportations have been outsourced to a private company and that that company has been given targets, and that deporting someone on a Sunday when solicitors, etc are not at work is easy, and apparently the tax change would not have got through parliament if the private sector had been included.
It is very difficult to be proud of your country when you perceive such injustices.
Winning the rugby helped with the damaged pride, of course, but is a distraction. Important issues must be addressed fairly.
PETER LANSDOWN
Silver Street
Ilminster
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