Why Winston should be revered
OF COURSE, Winston Churchill was not perfect. Of course he did bad and wrong things and made mistakes. Only a fool would pretend otherwise. But his supreme achievement, steadfastly refusing to make a shameful peace with Hitler when so many Tories wished to do so, rises far above all those errors. It is because he stands as a gigantic pillar of Parliament, patriotism and tradition that the enemies of Britain know they must destroy him if they are to abolish this country (as they wish to do). That is why he is now being attacked, as he was at a Cambridge debate last week, and why his statue is vandalised.
As long as he is still revered, it will be much harder for this country to be turned into the miserable People’s Republic which the Blairites hope for. Defend him and his memory.
I HAD a phone call from
HMRC yesterday morning. It was a recorded message telling me my account had been subject to fraud, and could I confirm a few details so they could help.
I was about to comply when I noticed the Cambridge dialling code. A scam. Much like the one that pops into my inbox regularly purporting to be from Royal Mail and asking me to fill in a form to release a package stuck at customs.
These wretched online fraudsters are a plague, and very much on the increase during lockdown. They also make life impossible for genuine callers.
Take the man who rang me a week ago claiming to be from NatWest, with whom I used to bank many years ago.
They had found a small sum of money left in my old account, and wanted new details in order to forward the balance.
Do I trust him? Or was I right, as I did, to send him away with a flea in his ear?
A BUSINESSMAN has hit out at Scotland’s ‘soft-touch’ justice system after a worker who embezzled £240,000 was freed after serving less than a third of her jail term.
Sarah Cockburn was a trusted manager at Jim McVicar’s family-run printing firm in Glasgow when she stole his money.
But, he says, it is the ‘softtouch’ courts that have truly robbed him. Despite being the victim, Mr McVicar, 74, has had to cash in his private pension, sell off equipment and cut jobs to keep his firm afloat.
He is also being chased for a huge debt to a power company – even though the bill was caused by her fraud. Meanwhile, Cockburn – who admitted embezzlement last year – has been released on an electronic tag just seven months into her two-year sentence.
Mr McVicar said: ‘There is nothing for the victim – everything is in favour of the offender and criminal. I have been left trying to pick up the pieces of a business I spent years building and have yet to be told what happened to my money and what it was spent on – let alone get anything back.
‘I then find out the person responsible is no longer in jail, after serving less than a third of her sentence. For all I know she will be spending my money while I suffer.’
Cockburn, from Garthamlock, Glasgow, stole the cash while working for James McVicar Printers as an accounts manager between 2013 and 2019.
She made 799 payments totalling £239,207.28 to bank accounts in her name over that six-year period.
The fraud was discovered when company accounts were investigated following an outstanding £28,000 bill with British Gas – which Mr McVicar is now expected to pay back.
He has suffered anxiety and depression and he is still on medication. First offender Cockburn pleaded guilty to embezzlement at Glasgow Sheriff Court in March last year.
The mother of two wept as Sheriff Andrew Cubie told her that her actions were ‘a gross betrayal of trust’.
Mr McVicar said he felt ‘stabbed in the back’ by someone he helped countless times.
He added: ‘As a result of this major fraud, eight people lost their jobs and I could not re-employ or replace them.’
He added: ‘Victim Support can do absolutely nothing to help me. You need to be stabbed and slashed five times before anyone will do anything to help.’
Mr McVicar now plans to take action against the banks he insists were negligent over Cockburn’s money transfers.