Please pass this on.

This was spotted on ARRSE after landing there following a google search for something relating to the previous post.

It's true, it's real and it's more than mean - and it needs publicity, so if you do read this please mention it in your own blog, or to your friends and neighbours if you don't have a site of your own.

Copied from the forum :-

Apologies if I'm stepping on any toes, but I've come accross a case which could really do with our help.

WO1 Mac McGearey is serving with 1 RTR. His daughter, Ciara, desperately needs specialist care, but the family has been shafted by Edinburgh Council who are taking them to court.

When Ciara was 3 days old, she contracted meningitis, leaving her blind, unable to speak and suffering from a number of other disabilities. Since she was 6 months old, she's been receiving specialist treatment from the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh.

However, Mac was posted to England and she obviously had to move schools. Ciara went to a non-specialist school and didn't receive the level of care she needed, so when an opportunity came up for an Edinburgh posting, Mac took it and moved his family back. However, the council refused to fund her place at the Royal Blind School and instead offered a place at another non-specialist school.

An indepdent tribunal concluded unanimously that the Royal Blind School was Ciara's best option, and that had Mac not been in the Army, she would still be attending. They then ordered that Edinburgh Council make funding available immediately.

Rather than comply, Edinburgh council elected to take the case to court at a cost of up to £160,000 in legal fees (Ciara's education at the RBS would be approx. £38k per year).

Mac's walking 500 miles to raise the money needed to keep Ciara in school until the court case.

If you can spare even a couple of quid, please make a donation or sponsor Mac's walk. The appeal is being run by the Scottish Poppy Appeal, and there's more info - pics and the story in Mac's own words - on the links.

There is more to read within the forum thread here and also in reports from the Scotsman and a piece by Alex Massie in the Spectator.

Here are a couple of snippets from the Scotsman :-
15th Jan 2010

A tribunal, which was set up under the Additional Support for Learning Act, ruled in November that the Blind School was the best option for Ciara.

However, bailiffs arrived at Ciara's home on Friday to issue a summons to the Court of Session, after the council lodged an appeal against the decision.

and 29th Jan 2010.

The council's education department wants Ciara, who lost her sight when she was only three days old after suffering meningitis, to go to the council-run Oaklands Special School, which does not specialise in blindness.

A tribunal, which was set up under the Additional Support for Learning Act, ruled in November that the Blind School was the best option for Ciara.

Calls for the council to withdraw its appeal against the ruling were yesterday rejected.

A motion was submitted in private to the full council meeting by Councillor Jason Rust asking the council to withdraw its appeal.

It was backed by his fellow Tory councillors, along with the Greens and Labour, but the administration voted in favour of continuing the appeal and it won on the casting vote of Lord Provost George Grubb.

Sometimes we Rigbys think we are going through tough times, but nothing like this

According to an ARRSE poster :-

This Warrent Officer Class 1 has turned down a Queen's Commission (and its pay and pension!) so his daughter can get the best education she can. That's love and nails for you!

Shame on you Edinburgh Council, shame on you!

Yep, that about sums it up!

 PoppyScotland link to sponsor Mac's walk is here

...............

A "section leader within Edinburgh City Council's finance department"  was, incidentally, in the news only yesterday, for something quite different.

Merging forces?

The Defence Green Paper, debated today, suggests that :-

The Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy could be merged into a single 'super force' .. but ... Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, said the structure of the Forces could be debated, but said neither Labour nor the Conservatives would go as far as abolishing any individual service

He said: “Do I think anything as radical as the disappearance of one of the services will be necessary? No I don't. But if other people want to suggest that that is up to them.” (handy bit of buck passing there)

The Mail adds a bit more, and annoys lots of readers by claiming it's to be a new 'alliance' with France  :-

[Mr Ainsworth] paved the way for greater military co-operation with France in a 21st century 'Entente Cordiale' .....

It's all most odd, because only two days ago Mr Brown told Navy they would be getting two lovely new aircraft carriers? :-

Gordon Brown will put two new aircraft carriers at the heart of his vision for the military this week as he commits Labour to billions of pounds of extra defence spending. .....
 
The Prime Minister will use the launch of a Green Paper on the future of the Armed Forces to promise a new generation of warships and fast jets over the coming decade. He will also guarantee an extra £1.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan, and promise to safeguard defence spending from any cuts next year. 

Mr Brown aims to display Labour commitment to the military while also forcing the Conservatives to say whether they would match such spending.

Didn't anybody tell Mr Brown what was in the Green Paper - or have the later news reports got the wrong idea?

As a sort of aside, the number of MPs who took part in the debate can be seen here on arrse but can be seen much more easily at 13th Spitfire's place.

And they tell us they care!

The perils of car sharing

A man has been jailed for four years for causing the deaths of a couple by dangerous driving in Lincolnshire - despite not being behind the wheel.


John Nichols was in the passenger seat as the car hit Mark Crompton and Jodie Brown on the A1 near Grantham in 2007.

The same story is reproduced in most newspapers, this snippet is from the BBC

Buying Quiche - with a smile.

Christine Cuddihy wanted to buy a slice of quiche, but checkout staff at Tesco, Cannons Park, Coventry thought otherwise and demanded identification before allowing her to take such a dangerous thing home.

In amongst the comments area beneath DM's article are a whole bunch from East Anglia - an excellent skit when put together in sequence. Whoever wrote them should be a script writer!

First :-

While this may seem laughable and ridiculous to alot of people I feel I must point out why I think this happened. Quiche is a very high fat food and young people aren't always the best judge of what is and isnt good for them. The lady here must have looked young to the cashier and some shops do have an obligation to stop people under 21 from buying things that are bad for them.

I used to run a convenience store and would ID anyone who wanted more than 2 bars of chocolate. Weight gain can run away with a young person and its up to the older members of society to try to protect them.
- 2/2/2010 15:35

Naturally there were many negative responses, but in the best tradition of Music-Hall, just one or two were singled out as being worthy of further comment  :-

To Cas: I feel I have a responsibility to steer youngsters in the right direction and that direction is not straight towards a giant quiche and a packet of toffee bonbons. I always looked at what my customers were buying and would comment if anything was too unhealthy for them. Obviously if they were over 21 I'd have to sell it to them but I was very careful about monitoring the younger ones.

I think its a good thing to do!
- 2/2/2010 15:51

and

Hello to Jo Jo, you have made me smile as i'm sitting here eating my homemade flapjack. Yes it was quite a bit like Fawlty Towers in that I tried to exercise a bit of control over my lovely customers. Well, more concern than control. I gave out loyalty cards to people buying healthy items and once they had bought 10 they were given a free tin of peas.
Similarly, if a customer repeatedly bought unhealthy goods I would take note and then hand them a leaflet about Weight Watchers-the look of embarassment would be so telling! I knew that from that moment on they would be health food addicts.
Ah it was a lovely time, I do miss it.
- 2/2/2010 16:55

Of course vociferous DM readers don't like evidence of people being treated like children, especially not for something trivial, but this commenter (is there such a word?) points out :-

I find it pretty ironic that i'm getting ridiculed and red arrowed for my comments and yet the article which ran last week about Tesco banning people wearing pyjamas received nothing but praise and admiration. If Tesco wants a dress code that is fine, and if I wanted to limit who I sold certain goods to then that should be fine too...so why isn't it?
- 2/2/2010 20:59

No answers?

So along comes the punchline, which would make Andy Burnham proud!

I dont understand all the negativity and red arrows! Some customers even told me they'd managed to lose weight and get healthy thanks to my 'moderation' policy.

More shop workers should give it a go, yes it affects your profits but what's more important- money or a healthy nation?
- 2/2/2010 20:21

Good job it's a joke.

Tin roofs for Haiti.

Linked with these thoughts is a cartoon by Peter Brookes of the Times

h/t The English Blog

Constitutional convention and inequalities.

Man in a Shed asks

I just wonder if this Parliament can bind the next with a referendum to take place after the current parliament ends ?

If I remember correctly there is a constitutional convention that no Parliament may bind another.

Or do I have this wrong ?

Interesting question, but having little more than an, "It can't be right," opinion of many of the things that have happened in the 13 years of this government it wouldn't be surprising if they do it anyway and pass the 'unintended consequences' onto somebody else to deal with later.

They will probably do it because they can, because those currently sitting in Westminster have a large enough majority to push through whatever legislation they wish. So many MPs are resigning at the end of this Parliament that it doesn't matter, on an individual basis, whether bad decisions are made - because it won't cost the individual either their vote or their means of earning a living.

The same question could be asked about devolution - which happened. There was, and still is, nothing anybody is prepared to do about resolving the problems it caused even though it would appear to fly in the face of equality and human rights legislation and, of course, the West Lothian Question remains unanswered and unresolved.

It may be that some EU bureaucrats decided there should be a number of 'Regional Assemblies', it may be that these bureaucrats decided both their geographical and demographical make-up many years ago (i.e. where they should be, and how many individuals they should appear to represent) - but to the ordinary Brit it seemed, at the time, that the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish were being given individual voices whilst denying that right to the English, and it, to some, appeared to be deliberately done, out of historical spite.

History is a strange thing, it means different things to different people.

Within every country there are staunch nationalists who would happily lock down their country and repel all boarders. Within the British Isles there are, and always have been, those who view the Treaties and Acts of Union rather personally, seeing them as little more than asset stripping, whilst failing to acknowledge that, very simplistically, it was a Scottish King who moved his throne to London rather than an English monarch who took over the Scottish throne. It would seem he did it because he was asked to do so, and may have done it for political expediency, and it might be that the later, aforementioned treaties, were financially useful.

Due to decisions made by employers we Rigbys have lived in England, Wales and Scotland, and have done so quite happily. Our children arrived with either the dragon or the saltire invisibly emblazoned on their foreheads - it means nothing to them, frankly they couldn't care less, and as young adults they can't see what all the fuss is about when it comes to 'regions' and 'national identity' within the British Isles because they've been told they're citizens of Europe.

The junior Rigbys have reached maturity during the term of this government you see, and know nothing else. They have had 'equality' and 'human rights' and 'equal opportunities' drilled into their heads at school and have always thought the whole lot was all fine, fair and reasonable. But, as they get older, they're finding it isn't quite like that. They are rapidly discovering that there are inequalities and unfairnesses that apply to them, personally, and also those they know and love.

The worst inequalities and unfairnesses the junior Rigbys see relate specifically to money, and to higher education and elderly care, and they have become quite vociferous in their complaints - but are finding there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, because there is no pressure group willing or able to speak out for them.

This is something of a political dilemma, because the junior Rigbys will be voting at the forthcoming General Election and they, honestly and truly, see nobody in any political group who is actively seeking their vote.

These are the sort of things they see :-

Britain is ruled, and governed, by a group of individuals drawn from the whole of the British Isles. Some of these individuals have chosen never to take their seats in Parliament, whilst still drawing their salary and expenses.

Some of these individuals appear to have helped push through legislation relating only to England, knowing that it will never affect their own constituents whilst the issue has been used as a political football in Parliament instead of worrying how it will affect individual people.

Interestingly, University Tuition Fees in Scotland are free ... if ...

... you are classed as being ordinarily resident in Scotland or another European Union (EU) country outside the UK, and are going to be studying full-time in Scotland, you will not be required to pay tuition fees. All tuition fees will be paid on your behalf by the Scottish Government through the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS). Students must apply for this funding every year.

It would appear that only the Non-Scottish Brits have to pay to attend university in Scotland. It would be hard to see how this selective pricing would be permitted anywhere else within the EU - but here in Britain this academic apartheid goes unchallenged and unscrutinised by the equality watchers.

The Junior Rigbys are aware of a peculiar system whereby older relatives, living only tens of yards to the English side of the Welsh border and registered with a GP whose practice is in Wales, have to pay prescription charges - even when these prescriptions are dispensed to the west of the border line - unlike those patients who live the other side of the line drawn on a map.

If the Junior Rigbys and their friends are truly representative of their generation it would seem that many young English voters feel pushed to one side and disenfranchised.

These are not the lager-louts of their generation, these are decent young people who are future breadwinners and taxpayers.

These young people want to see Parliament and Government representing them and their interests - because they are selfish, as are most teenagers. It doesn't matter how often they are preached at by the political elite about making sure 'minorities' are catered for, they see the here and now, and what they see is an unequal country where some sections of the population are being ignored.

Many of these young people have taken part time, temporary, minimum wage, holiday jobs to help them get through incredibly tough times financially - it isn't possible to be 'unemployed' during university holidays - and have seen a proportion of their wage taken by the taxman - money that should have been refunded at the end of the tax year, but due to 'administrative delays' it's still sitting in the treasury coffers - ten months later. But they don't know anybody whose benefits have been reduced due to the same sort of 'administrative delays'.

These young people look at their "equals" at university and see some whose fees and accommodation costs are paid by the state, because they come from 'poor' families, and they think that some of these 'poor' students are only at "Uni" to party and have a good time whilst some others are so semi-literate that they need helpers. They're told that this is 'equal opportunity' and is the right thing to happen.

According to ONS, and by carefully moving the slider and jotting down the figures, there are  4,198,600 voters (age 18-22 in 2010) who have reached their majority since the 2005 general election.

If all these people turn out to vote they could, truly, make a difference to the outcome of the coming election - but what is government doing to attract them, and encourage them to vote Labour?

Here are just a few of the less-than-attractive things that have been discussed at Rigby Towers and other nearby homes recently :-

• New rules that force siblings of these voters stay in full time education until they are 18 - when the good guys amongst this group would be happier to get away from the disruptive elements with whom they have had to share their classrooms.

• Encouraged rules that, although you may drink alcohol at 18, you are not allowed to buy it until you're 21 - and nor can parents if there is a young person with them at the supermarket checkout ... but it's still possible to get married at 16, and have children, and be given accommodation and financial support paid for from the public purse.

• Cigarette smokers have been turned into social pariahs, forcing them outside whatever the weather, yet leniency and sympathy is extended to those who use unscented illegal drugs in public toilets.

• Brought in rules that appear to give non-Brits greater rights to jobs than the indigenous population.

• The lack of free NHS dental care - for all, not just adults.

• Taking money away from Army Cadets and UOTC, but not the juniors branches of the Air Force or Navy.

• Plans to cut Higher Education funding and reduce the number of students, whilst quotas ensure places for the less hard-working rather than high achievers.

• By relaxing the rules regarding learning foreign languages and reducing the rigour of terminal language assessment (which was fine at the time because it made life easier) many of this age group are finding the job market is closed to them - because other Europeans are better qualified.

• Done nothing to discourage ad hominem attacks whereby an individual can be lambasted for holding an opinion rather than their opinion being the subject of debate.

Unsurprisingly there have been few, if any, discussions relating to the nice things that have happened, there doesn't seem to have been anything that has made life either better or easier.

It isn't only those currently in government who need to understand the situation relating to those who are new to voting, it is also those who are seeking to beat Labour at a coming election.

If these young people see government trying to push through legislation that changes the electoral system in such a way that it appears to ensure they (Labour) either remain in, or return to, power it will be seen by some young people as yet more bully-boy tactics - unfair and unreasonable, although perhaps 'constitutionally' acceptable.

If they see opposition parties sitting on their hands and letting this legislation through then these young people will seek alternative parties that appear to represent them - it won't matter to them if "the establishment" doesn't like these minor groups, it won't matter if "the establishment" calls these groups bad names - that sort of thing is attractive, after all, young people  - even really nice young people - are traditionally anti-establishment and will often go out of their way to make the grown-ups unhappy.

.

Pope Benedict XVI speaks out against Harman's "equality" law.

This doesn't really need much of a comment :-

Pope Benedict XVI claimed that legislation introduced by Labour to end discrimination “actually violates natural law” because it stopped worshippers remaining true to their beliefs.

Rather than making society more equal, the Government’s new rules limited religious freedom, he said.

His strongly worded intervention in British politics comes after leaders of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England clashed with Labour over its Equality Bill, which they fear will make them admit homosexuals to the priesthood or face prosecution for discriminating against them.

In an address delivered yesterday [1st February] to 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales, the Pope attacked Labour’s equality proposals. He said: “Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet ... the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.

 The article continues :-

It is also believed the law, intended to outlaw discrimination against any group in the “provision of services” from health care to shopping, would restrict the right of a church school to employ a head teacher who shared their faith, and would open the job up to members of any religion or atheists.

From this little paragraph it would appear that this is yet more woolly-worded legislation. It would appear that Harriet wants Christians to be able to be head teachers in Islamic schools, Jewish schools and so on - and vice versa.

That'll go down well.

It will be interesting to see reports of the very first test case.

Mr Tatchell, who seems to have been fairly quiet lately, has become something of a seer and speaks on behalf of the British population :-

Benedict is likely to make highly partisan political criticisms during his visit. Most British people will not welcome a meddlesome pontiff who opposes our equality laws.”

Sorry Mr Tatchell, many people would think your comments rather presumptive - the "British people" can speak for themselves. You're likely to be quite surprised by the popularity of the Pope's proposed visit.

English votes on English Laws - Power 2010

Currently Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each have their own parliament or assembly with devolved powers over education, health and other areas.

MPs from these countries sitting in the UK Parliament, however, still retain the right to vote on laws that will apply in England and not their own countries.

A system of English votes on English laws would mean that only those MPs in Westminster representing English constituencies would be permitted to vote on England-only laws.

Why you should vote for this reform:

• It prevents laws being passed due to the votes of Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh MPs who won't be held accountable for how they voted because the laws don't affect their constituents.

• It ends the fundamental unfairness of MPs from one country voting on issues that affect another country whose MPs don't enjoy the equivalent right.

• It gives the English nation a political voice at the national level, which at the moment it lacks.

If you like this idea why not vote for it?

Here
*** link removed from this site by blog owner ***
(see post dated 31 March 2010)

A question of airport security

It was vaguely reassuring to read that Yates of the YardMet thinks that passenger profiling might be a good idea, his thoughts are reported thus (30th January 2010) :-

He agreed that an “elderly white woman dressed in middle-class garb” was unlikely to be a terrorist .....

Mr Yates called for searches [to spot suspicious individuals at airports and in other areas sensitive to attack] to be carried out using intelligence databases, and “sharp thinking” on the ground.

He said that suspicions should be aroused by an individual’s personal history and pattern of travel, how they bought their ticket, and their luggage.

The anti-terrorism chief continued: “At the same time, we must encourage police and security staff to use their experience, their street-craft - their ‘nous’. This means considering a range of factors - dress, body language, behaviour or simply something that’s ‘not quite right’.

“This puts the onus on our staff to be intelligent and to act with common sense."

This all seems eminently sensible.

It's reassuring to think that, should the quite elderly Mrs Rigby Senior decide to travel by air, she would probably not be subjected to the indignity of either a body search or a body scan - even if the bits of metal in her hip frighten the scanners.

Mrs R Sr is a nervous passenger, she always has been, and she's read about these scanning machines and the whole concept, frankly, terrifies her - she can't understand why anybody would imagine she might be a criminal, let alone a bomb-carrying terrorist.

Lord Adonis, however, doesn't seem to be quite as reassuring as Yates of the Yard, as outlined in his answer to a written question (dated 1st February 2010) :-

The requirement to deploy AIT machines at Heathrow and Manchester airports comes into effect today ... This will be followed by a nationwide roll-out of scanners in the coming months. These scanners are designed to give airport security staff a much better chance of detecting explosives or other potentially harmful items hidden on a passenger’s body.

..... The Code will require airports to undertake scanning sensitively, having regard to the rights of passengers.

..... In the immediate future, only a small proportion of airline passengers will be selected for scanning. If a passenger is selected for scanning, and declines, they will not be permitted to fly.

However, the Interim Code of Practice stipulates: “Passengers must not be selected on the basis of personal characteristics (i.e. on a basis that may constitute discrimination such as gender, age, race or ethnic origin)”.

His Lordship certainly does send out a mixed message, appearing to give equal weight to the "rights" of passengers and "discrimination" - presumably because anything else would be provocative to rightists of various sorts, but his concealed punchline says it all  -  if a passenger is selected for scanning, and declines, they will not be permitted to fly.

It would be good if Lord Adonis and the powers-that-be could explain this rule to an elderly British lady who lived through WW2 and who carried on going to work whilst all around her was destroyed, due to the Blitz.

This particular elderly person lost family members both in battle and as a result of indiscriminate bombing. She has managed to survive the IRA mainland bombing campaigns, having been told to 'carry on'. She has never knowingly, and certainly never deliberately, broken a law in her life.

It would be good if those with authority could properly explain to an elderly, and essentially very private, lady who has never let the more intimate parts of her body be seen by any person other than her husband or a member of the medical profession, and who has only ever been scanned or x-rayed due to medical need, that if she wants to be allowed to travel in an aeroplane she might be chosen, called out of a line of passengers, to stand in front of a machine that is capable of using technology to undress her, and - as she describes the process - so that somebody she can't herself see will be able to look at her 'naked body'.

Believe me Lord Adonis, I've tried to explain it, but for the life of me I can't - no matter how hard I try. It's even harder having read what they do at Israel's airports.

Israeli airport security, much of it invisible to the untrained eye, begins before passengers even enter the terminal. Officials constantly monitor behavior, alert to clues that may hint at danger: bulky clothing, say, or a nervous manner. Profilers -- that's what they're called -- make a point of interviewing travelers, sometimes at length. They probe, as one profiling supervisor told CBS, for ``anything out of the ordinary, anything that does not fit." Their questions can seem odd or intrusive, especially if your only previous experience with an airport interrogation was being asked whether you packed your bags yourself.

Why, oh why, does this country continue to imitate the worst, most draconian, practices that make individual people feel uncomfortable, disconcerted and worried.

It's almost as if 'they' want us to be afraid - but 'they' can't possible want that, because it would mean that the bad guys have won their battle.

Anderson Shelters for Haiti.

Carefully reported on the BBC and in and in some of the Scottish newspapers (but not so far in any "English" papers) are details of Mr and Mrs Brown's attendance at a poetry fundraising event at Westminster Hall in London.

Whilst there Mr Brown announced that he had bought all the corrugated iron in Britain - all 5,700 sheets of it, worth £35,000. He's taking that money out of the £20 million 'pledged' by the government in aid, and is sending these sheets of metal off to Haiti where they will be used to provide up to 2,000 "hurricane-proof" shelters. It seems that this might be the first thing Britain is sending to Haiti.

Bear with me, because the rest of this post rambles on a bit, and wanders off at disjointed tangents.

These sheets of corrugated iron are to be taken to Haiti on the RFA vessel Largs Bay. It's a "landing ship dock", so should be able to unload almost anywhere there's a beach - one of the more sensible decisions that's been made, as explained by The Yorkshire Ranter . (It's worth a read)

The BBC points out that around 1.5 million Haitians are now homeless - their homes are heaps of rubble, some of which covers decaying human remains.

Britain is sending these people (who have survived devastating earthquakes and many of whom suffered terrible injuries and are at risk of cholera and other diseases) bits of metal (no mention of timber to build supporting structures) that will make the equivalent of Anderson Shelters - something British people would never consider living in, not even during wartime. People in Britain would now never consider living under a tin roofed house either, not even one with proper walls - it would be too hot when the sun shines, and too noisy when it rains, so it wouldn't look nice enough and probably wouldn't be environmentally friendly either.

Sending this corrugated iron seems slightly  hypocritical and seems, somehow, to lack respect too, and respect is sadly lacking in the media's portrayal of Haiti - as pointed out by Andy Kershaw in an excellent article in the Independent. Please read the article, it'll make you think.

All this, along with other snippets that have been recently highlighted by other bloggers, has left Mrs R in something of a quandary, and has made her ask a few questions she can't easily answer.

One of the things she can't answer relates to the moral responsibility of aid-givers at the time of a serious national disaster, especially when our own government's aid-givers seem very slow to help people within our own country who are in desperate need - after flooding, during heavy snowfall etc - when private individuals have been left to their own devices and told to use 'community spirit' to keep themselves going.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation lists what British people think they need in order to maintain the most basic standard of living, and Raedwald recently pointed out that, according to Save the Children, British children are "living in poverty" if they don't have, amongst other things :-

Dressing Gown - 1
Jeans - 3prs
Jumpers - 4
Jumpers - 3 (different?)
Pants - 10prs
PE shorts - 2prs
Swim shorts - 1
PE tops - 1
PE 'T' shirts - 2
Plimsoles / trainers - 1 pr
Polo shirts - 6
Pyjamas - 2
School shoes - 1pr
School socks - 5prs
Shorts - 3prs
Socks - 10prs
Tracksuit bottoms - 2ps
Trainers - 1pr
Trousers - 4prs
T-shirts - 5
Vests - 10
Waterproof coat - 1
Wellington boots - 1
Winter Coat - 1
... more items are listed on this spreadsheet, which runs to several pages

If British children need all these things they also, presumably, need somewhere to put them - so have to have wardrobes and or chests of drawers. They also need a means to keep these things clean, and a decent enough building in which to put everything, complete with closable windows and lockable doors to keep out thieves and inclement weather. In Britain we might get frost, snow and heavy rain, but we rarely get hurricanes strong enough to blow our sturdily-built homes away.

All these 'essential' things are provided for British children via their parent(s) - out of salary if the parents work, via the benefits system if the parent(s) won't or can't work. Nobody in Britain is left without, it's a social contract.

Britain as a nation, and using money collected via taxation from every person who spends money, is sending 5,700 sheets of corrugated iron to Haiti. Corrugated iron is the most basic of roofing materials - and is to be used to make 'shelters', it is not described as being suitable to make 'homes' or houses. The Haitian hurricane season usually starts in May, and Haitian hurricanes can blow away homes.

It's been well documented that there are temporary "tent towns" in Haiti. These temporary towns are home to, so far, around 500,000 people near Port-au-Prince alone. The tents - some are high quality, stormproof affairs, others are very temporary and are little more than plastic sheeting supported by posts - have mostly been provided by charities and are emergency relief that's already in situ. This emergency relief includes the Rotary Club's excellent ShelterBoxes - which have been paid for by online donations, street collections - all voluntary giving.

Let's carry on looking at these ShelterBoxes. Each one contains a 10-person tent, 10 sleeping bags, cooking equipment, cutlery and so on. The boxes themselves are huge (I've seen one), need two people to carry them and are large enough to be used as a crib, sturdy enough to be used to carry water and when covered by the lid could easily be used as a temporary table.

More than 1,500 (and rising) of these boxes have already arrived in Haiti - that's 1,500+ tents providing emergency accommodation and basic living equipment for at least 15,000 adults. Look at the pictures here and you'll see how successful, and how neat and tidy it all looks.

Reading around the internet it seems that Haitians don't actually like living in these tented towns, but they've got no choice because there is nowhere else to go, and there is such a lot to do before they can return to the areas destroyed by the first, powerful, earthquake and the lesser aftershock. They are grateful for the aid, grateful that things arrived so fast, disappointed that food etc wasn't distributed more quickly - but acknowledge that it wasn't easy because the poor transport and communication infrastructure had been made worse by the quakes and because Haiti is a poor country it didn't have the heavy machinery to move things from the airport to where it was needed.

To help the people of Haiti, who are mostly living in temporary accommodation, our government is sending, on our behalf, enough corrugated iron to make approximately 2,000 temporary roofs - which is only 500 more temporary roofs than have already been provided by ShelterBox, which is a fairly small charity.

There is no suggestion that there will be anything whatsoever to go beneath these temporary tin roofs - at least not yet - no beds, no tables, no chairs, no clothes, no wardrobes - all those things so essential to British people, so this shipload of stuff doesn't seem to be the best use of public money and nor does it seem to be particularly forward thinking - in terms of long-term need and long-term help, just a temporary fix that probably isn't exactly essential.

So here are the unanswerable questions ...

What right does our government have to buy up all stocks of any material, effectively depriving British people of this item in order to make a 'gesture' - because a temporary roof is little more than a gesture.

Has our government decided that, because some of the people who've lost their homes used to live in shanty towns, they neither need nor deserve anything better than what they had before the earthquake stuck?

Do the children of Haiti need, or deserve, the same as British children in terms of belongings and accommodation? If not, why not, and if yes - is it our responsibility to intervene at a time of crisis to ensure Haitian children get what they either need or deserve, or should we sit back and hope somebody else does it, or hope that somehow the surviving adults will manage to provide these 'essentials' all on their own - something they would never be expected by British have-nots.

At what point does "giving overseas aid" amount to interference or meddling with another country's affairs?

I've absolutely no idea how to answer these questions, but it's something to think about - and it all started with 5,700 sheets of corrugated iron and how they compare to some nice-looking tents.

As an aside - it will be interesting, don't you think, to see if Mr Brown offers to help rebuild the Presidential Palace.