ROTHERHAM ABUSE SIGNALS YET MORE FAILURE.

Year after year, we hear stories of the abuse of children, whether it be within families or on a more widespread and organised basis. Every year we are also told, by those in authority, that they didn't know, they did what they could, they will learn lessons, it won't happen again and so on. Every year, it happens again.

Today we've heard of the organised and long term abuse of children in the town of Rotherham. It seems that some 1,400 children are known to have been abused over the period from 1997 to 2013; once again, we've heard the same old platitudes from the 'experts' and others in authority. The local Police and Crime Commissioner, who was the local councillor with specific responsibility for children's services between 2005 and 2010, has refused calls for him to resign from his current post, saying that, in effect, he has no responsibility and that fault lies only with others who failed to tell him what was happening.

In the wake of the revelations about Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and others, this is yet another tale of the failures of social services, the police and local councils to deal with the most shocking of offences. In this case, it seems that the police ignored complaints from victims while council officials covered things up, more fearful for their jobs than for the abused. It also seems that much of the abuse was carried out by organised gangs of men of Pakistani origin and that a fear of being labelled as 'racist' was a prime concern for those in authority who did nothing.

It is surely a dreadful indictment of our country that we have sunk to such a level. No one dares move for fear of being accused of being 'racist', 'sexist', homophobic, etc., etc. We have become so determined to prize the mythical 'equality' above all that we shy away from treating everyone the same; in fact, we go out of our way to make special exceptions for those of supposed 'minority' or 'disadvantaged' groups and allow them to, literally, get away with murder.

I don't like what is happening to my country and I especially don't like the vast influx of foreigners who don't share my language or culture, but I am not a racist. I also don't much like the actions of the more extrovert members of the homosexual 'community', but that does not make me homophobic. Reporting criminal acts by foreigners, homosexuals or women doesn't make me guilty of an '-ism' or a phobia either, and yet senior figures in Rotherham and elsewhere have been so afraid that they did nothing in the face of the blatant and rampant abuse of children.

When will this sorry little country of ours come to its senses ?

MEN'S MAGS, CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL.

Not very long ago, the do-gooders who rule our society succeeded in having 'men's magazines' removed from display in most newsagents. It was claimed that such magazines were demeaning to women and damaging to children, while pandering to the baser instincts of men. Whether or not such claims were justified does not matter, those who seek to control our lives won the day.

The next target of these control freaks was cigarettes. After much huffing and puffing, they succeeded in having cigarettes banned from pubs and clubs, public venues, offices, and so on, regardless of whether the people frequenting such places cared one way or the other. They managed to have lurid and ghoulish images daubed on cigarette packets and eventually had them locked away behind shutters in our shops. The only thing they haven't achieved is an out and out ban on the sale of tobacco products which would, of course, have far too great an effect on the government's income to ever be allowed, however much damage they cause.

I fully expected the attack on smoking to be followed by a similar attack on alcohol and, lo and behold, today it's started. A group of MPs has issued a report demanding that the government takes action on alcohol misuse. It wants warnings on bottles and a reduction in the limit for drivers, among its 10 so-called 'recommendations'. There is no room for personal freedom and responsibility in such demands, it is all about 'society's needs' and these people have set themselves up as the ones who know exactly what it is that society needs.

How long will it be before bottles of alcohol are required to have plain packaging or, worse still, the same type of imagery as is required for cigarettes ? How long before alcoholic offerings have to be hidden from view ? How long before we have new rules regarding age limits for the consumption of alcohol or where it can be consumed ? And what will be the next target of our controlling, do-gooding masters ?

If we are to be free, we must reject this nonsense and demand that our politicians get back to governing the country, and not our lives. If we do not, we may as well forget about democracy and personal freedom and just accept the dictatorship which those in power would rather enjoy.

KADCYLA : TOO COSTLY BY HALF.

Some people seem to think that the NHS is nothing but a bottomless pit which has to spend whatever is asked on whatever they want.

The drug 'giant' Roche' has recently developed a new product which they've named 'Kadcyla'. It is claimed that this drug can extend the lives of some breast cancer sufferers by an average of just under 6 months at a cost of £90,000 per patient; unsurprisingly, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has refused to recommend that the NHS makes this drug available except in specific instances. Equally unsurprisingly, the breast cancer lobby is not happy.

Breast cancer is always a very emotive subject and any refusal to treat patients with the latest wonder drug is always publicised as an assault upon 'women's rights' or some such nonsense. Regardless of the cost, lobby groups demand that everything possible has to be done to extend the lives of sufferers by a year, a few months, weeks or even days. They pay no attention to the myriad of other demands placed on the NHS and think only of what they want; they give no thought as to the source of the NHS's funds but simply demand that whatever they want must be provided.

Such issues occur regularly but nearly always in relation to women's health; it is rare if not unheard of for anyone to make vociferous demands in respect of men. Why is this ? Why is it that women's health is treated as being such a 'high-profile' matter while men's is largely ignored, other than for an occasional mention of prostate cancer, a killer for which I've yet to hear of any ludicrously expensive drugs being developed ?

To demand that the NHS should spend close to £100,000 per patient in order to provide less than 6 months of life, the quality of which may be debatable, is madness. The people who are making such demands need to wake up to the realities of the world and understand that just wanting something doesn't mean they can have it. Or are they really so infantile in their outlook that they can't even see this simple piece of common sense ?