Hogan plus Vowles

Like most of us here in the United Kingdom I see the pictures of the Calais migrants and have that feeling that somehow they are not real refugees. And then, again like most British people, I have that stab of regret, am I being unfair to these people? So why am I still uneasy? Are they real refugees? So those are the questions that I have pondered. I was born in 1937 so grew up being bombed, seriously being blitzed in Plymouth where over a thousand died, well over four thousand were injured, and thousands moved away from the city. I remember seeing many photographs in the daily papers of the 60 million refugees in Europe resulting from that terrible conflict. When the war was over, and we were then living in Bath, my family participated in that city's temporary adoption of Dutch children from Alkmaar, a town that had been ravaged by the Nazis. There were still hundreds of thousands of refugees in 1953 when I became a merchant navy cadet and then I actually visited many of t

AN ISLAND NATION Island Nation or EU satellite state? Last night Jeremy Paxman, on the 19th May 2016, presented an objective view of the European Union. It is clear that the EU intends becoming a federal state and that the United Kingdom would become subsumed into that bureaucratic nightmare. I give you an alternative - the open sea  and the Commonwealth. We are an island nation off Europe but not part of Europe.The Commonwealth needs us and we most certainly need them - they are the World. It is not a pipe dream, the building blocks are still there - just - and it is predicated on the following :- “The Charter brings together the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth - democracy, human rights and the rule of law - in a single, accessible document. The Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all peoples of the Commonwealth. The Cha

Leave the EU and save Fish & Lives. If the United Kingdom leaves the EU then it will give this nation the opportunity to save lives in the fishing industry and preserve fish stocks in the Atlantic Ocean. If the nation remains chained to this bureaucratic behemoth then there will be continued death and destruction of fisherfolk, and their communities, and an inevitable ecological disaster for fish stocks in the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. In the past decade, 94 fishermen have died at sea in the UK, 529 fishermen have suffered serious injury and 210 fishing vessels have been lost. There have been 3,326 accidents on UK fishing vessels in these last 10 years. The United Kingdom has approximately 12,000 fisherfolk and they are engaged in what is the most dangerous occupation there is other than warfare. Our membership of the EU has done nothing to correct or alleviate this continued tradegy; membership of the EU has exacerbated the situation in many ways. Sadly, while the fatal acc