"Ms Lumley's co-campaigners were behind him and arranged it so that there were pictures of injured Gurkhas beside each of his ears. Doughnutted by hideous lacerations! What an error! If Alastair Campbell were dead, he would be turning in his grave."
Simon Hoggart, The Guardian, 8 May
23 comments:
Just another example of the pathetic individuals we have in Government. As for trusting Jimmy Gorgon Brown, dream on, Joanna.
Armando Iannucci must also be thinking of throwing in the towel...
How can his fiction compete with this for hilarity ?
Spinning in his grave, surely.
I heard that simpering excuse for a Minister, Phil Woolas, on 'The Toady' programme this morning with ‘St. Joanna of Lumley’. Lumley made Woolas sound ridiculous as he tried to hide behind the old "if we let them in, we would have to let in their dependents as well..." line - what a crock!
Strangely, that argument has never been an issue for any other nationality up till now - Woolas even tried to argue that if we let in the Gurkhas, we would set a precedent and have to let in those Commonwealth citizens who fought for this country in WWII!?!
As St. Joanna pointed out, she herself is an OAP and she was born AFTER WWII!!
Another useless Minister trying to defend the indefensible...
How about Nadine last night: "Trident is not a weapon of mass destruction". Oy
I would have thought just one MP's maintenance costs would equal that of a regiment of Gurkhas.
I would support the idea of a statue of this episode outside the commons to remind people never to let Labour anywhere near the levers of power ever again.
Olrightie 9.50 am
Lumley has been a class act. She's made the whole sorry bunch of Hoons in the Government look extra special stupid - if that were possible.
Of course she doesn't trust Gordon Brown. That's why she says she does. See, she's playing their game.
Telling lies.
Walsingham's Ghost said...
'--- St. Joanna pointed out, she herself is an OAP and she was born AFTER WWII!!'
i don't have to believe it if i don't want to !
Got to say never ever in my wildest imaginations did I think that Purdey would expose the British government as a bunch of hypocrites.
It is Steed who must be turning in his grave
@ Twig
What a great idea! - do the Gurkhas actually have a Statue/Monument to them anywhere at the moment?
I feel a Campaign coming on...
Having watched the video of Woolas being glared at by Joanna whilst repeating word for word what she told him to say was hilarious. I would have paid unlimited amounts of money if she had finished the interview by slapping him round the back of the head.
Princess Joanna has the measure of Wooly.
Did you notice as spoke, she paused after each point, waiting for Woolhead to confirm what she had just said.
"That's right isn't it Mr Woolarse. That's what we have just agreed?"
Its class.
@ Paul Halsall.
Quite so. If you search the twitterverse for 'Dorries' or #bbcqt the opprobrium is near universal.
I am old enough to remember Ms Lumley when she was Diana Rigg
The deal offered to the pre-1997 Gurkhas was employment and then a pension that made them relatively rich in Nepal. They were never offered and never asked for British residence. I can't remember any one (politicians, Ms Lumley's father etc etc) ever saying at the time that the arrangements were unfair.
There was a good article by Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times.
"Hush, Miss Lumley, the Gurkhas knew the deal"
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article6211395.ece
While I accept that the Government's original proposals looked mean,anything that is offered is more than the original deal. There will have to be rules. The problem is where to draw the line. Certainly let's be generous to cases of long service, or illness caused by army service. Ms Lumley quoted a soldier injured during the Falklands and he certainly sounds a deserving case.But for every one case like that there will be hundreds of others that are much more mundane. In other cases where the soldier did just a few years, won no medals,etc, why should we grant citizenship to him and his extended family?
Referring to the item on BBC Radio 4 Today,the soldier Ms Lumley mentioned sounds very deserving (he was seriously injured in the Falklands) but is he typical of all the potential applicants?
What she and the press don't seem to understand is that any immigration rules have to be objective to cover all categories of applicant. You can't draft laws that say we'll let A in because he's admirable and reject B because he's not. That would be subjective, but the law has to be objective. Any new immigration rules will set a precedent. So they will have to be drawn up with care so that human rights lawyers don't exploit them in the future for the benefit of some undeserving group (choose your own).
Similarly in public administration, there is usually a legal requirement to give written notice of a decision whether it is on a planning appeal, a tax appeal or here an immigration appplication. Why is it so hard for Ms Lumley to understand that legal rules requiring the issue of decision letters cannot just be ingnored simply because she has been parading herself round Westminster and the TV studios?
I'm no supporter of Labour but I thought Phil Woolas did a pretty good job of trying to explain that this morning.
Personally I'm getting a bit fed up with Joanna Lumley. She seems to be hogging the airwaves just recently and her behaviour yesterday of hijacking ministers' meetings is unseemly. Didn't they teach her at Roedean (or whereever)and her finishing school that you don't accost people in the corridor, but arrange meetings properly?
@ 6p01156f4c4fdc970c (???)
You are really Phil Woolas and I hereby claim my prize...
6p01156f4c4fdc970cThey're trying to keep out one of the few groups of people who can be considered as friends of the UK while our enemies are free to come and go as they please.
This (so called) government has fallen too far out of step with the people of this country to be considered as legitimate.
Sorry about the numbers –it’s the first time that I’ve used Typepad here. Why doesn’t my real name appear? Anyway it’s Martin , not Phil.Phil Woolas wouldn't dare criticise Ms Lumley as I have.
I've already said that I accept that the Government's original proposals looked mean (e.g a requirement for 20 years’ service).
RuthV. Why will it be a doddle to draft legislation that wasn't the thin end of the wedge? People from Nepal may come but people from Bhuthan or Sikkhim may not? That wouldn’t last five minutes in court, because of human rights and race equality laws.
And surely you know that the quality of legislation under Labour has often been dire, often giving ride to unintended consequences.
I don’t follow the logic of your last paragraph. Just because Labour has mismanaged immigration and asylum and let far too many people in, does not seem to be an argument for letting in yet 100,000 more, however relatively admirable the latest group is.
Better to have firm but fair rules for the Gurkhas and try and bring firmness to the handling of other groups.
@martin"...People from Nepal may come but people from Bhuthan or Sikkhim may not? That wouldn’t last five minutes in court, because of human rights and race equality laws.""People from Nepal may come"?
Who said that?
I thought We were talking about giving "presumption in favour" to veterans of the Brigade of Gurkhas not the entire population of Nepal and surrounding areas.
Please elucidate.
This government lets our enemies in; they turn away those who have proved they are LOYAL to Queen and country (not to the labour government).
Would you expect anything else; the Labour government KNOW they are hatred and despised by ordinary people; they do not dare let in people who understand loyalty; and know how to fight !
I am willing to bet a large amount of money (legally earned from hard work,not fiddling expenses...) that Brown simply cannot allow the Gurkha's what they have requested in terms of UK entry rights.
He is pathologically unable to do it and I predict that he will be kicked out in the week after the 4th June elections.
Profumo took down a government and now the wonderful Gurkha's will take this one down simply due to this moron's inability to let anyone else have the last word in an argument.
The expenses revelations will undermine his cabinet,but it will be the Gurkha's that will be the nail in his coffin.
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