Monday 14 October 2024

Have You Run Out Of UK Sob Stories Then, Frances?

It is breakfast and I reach for a painkiller dropped off by a Boots delivery van. The sleep apnoea machine by the bed is beeping and I plug it in to the mains to charge. I can’t stop thinking about the disabled and ill people in Gaza; the dialysis patients who were halfway through their treatment when the power stopped, the children surviving off animal feed who can’t find bread, let alone a wheelchair.
I guess now Labour's in power, everything in the UK is rosy, and you have to look further afield, eh, Frances?
There is one aspect that is rarely talked about: what is happening to disabled Palestinians. That adults and children with disabilities are often the worst affected by conflict is an atrocity as old as war itself. If you are paralysed, you cannot run from shrapnel. If you are deaf, you don’t hear the sirens warning you to take cover. More than a decade of Israeli restrictions on imports and travel mean disabled people in Gaza were living without treatment and equipment long before the first missiles fell.

Congratulations, Frances, you've finally found a truly deserving cause, and you only had to go abroad to find it!  

I unplug my sleep apnoea machine and I wonder if the real darkness will come when any of this seems normal.

No doubt you'd demand we ship them all over here, eh, Frances? Or is that next week's column?

4 comments:

Mudplugger said...

Did Hamas think about all that before launching its unprovoked attack on October 7th last year?
Thought not.
Are you going to tell them or shall I?

Andy5759 said...

Not only next weeks column but this week's talking point for the chattering classes. Followed by questions in parliament, resulting in legislation. That's how the country works, if you want to know what's hurtling towards us just read the Grauniad. As weather vanes go it's pretty a infallible guide.

Stonyground said...

After reading this post over at Samizdata, I find it very difficult to muster any sympathy for the Palestinians. The saying, as you sow so shall you reap, is what comes to mind.

https://www.samizdata.net/2024/10/shani-louk-was-half-german-some-thoughts/

Anonymous said...

It must be so depressing being a "journalist" at the Guardian but as Andy says they are listened to avidly by the left wing vermin that infest the civil service, police, NHS and this new awful government.