WE CAN’T ALLOW PARANOIA TO CONSUME OUR LIVES
THE government is announcing new plans to keep women safe on our streets. What these nebulous proposals will entail is yet to be revealed by a panel of so-called experts with a PhD in psychology.
One suggestion is to employ plain clothes police officers in nightclubs.
This sounds a little like the short sharp shock policy from a previous government that only led to continued anti-social behaviour and public disenchantment.
We have more CCTV than any other country in Europe and it has not created the safer environment in which we wish to live. Crime is a dispiriting fact of life and we cannot protect ourselves from every eventuality. Our safety is always contingent on being in the right place at the right time.
We cannot allow paranoia to consume our lives, as not every man is a Peter Sutcliffe and not all children are Venables and Thompson. It is unlikely that Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence, Jess Phillips, has any suggestions, and playing Judy to Johnson’s Mr Punch isn’t solving the dilemma.
THE risible 1% pay rise offered to our health workers should not come as a surprise to anyone.
It reflects the gratitude our Government shows towards those who selflessly contribute so much to the health and wellbeing of the country.
That ‘Let the Thursday clapping and pot-banging tradition be their reward’ mentality seems to sum it up.
As with our military, our health services are all partly charity subsidised and yet we rarely question why. Britain is fast becoming an ever-expanding charitocracy, dependent on scratch cards and postcode lotteries for funding but is now finding itself short on pandemic-induced public compassion.
Bernie Carroll