20 FEATURE
17 FEBRUARY 2022
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From the front line…
Roses are red, violets are blue. Royal Mail may leave you fuming, It’s true. BY JACQUELINE CURZON Now, if like myself you’re a person who likes to buy in bulk and appreciate savings, you may have been rather incensed to hear that the Royal Mail is going to introduce new barcoded stamps which will render any you may have collected over the years - displaying first or second class, or perhaps just some interesting stamps displaying a price - potentially worthless. I think it’s disingenuous for them to say that you may be allowed to exchange them on an unsecured basis before the regular stamps become invalid in January 2023. As somebody recently commented, the purchase of a stamp is like any other civil contract, and both parties are bound by the terms and conditions as they were at the time of purchase. Should the Royal Mail want to make a new for old exchange, it should make it secure such as by allowing exchange at the post office. It should not be an arbitrary decision made by a third-party. On the same tag I would like to applaud one of our stalwart retailers, John Lewis plc, who in days of old used to issue paper gift vouchers. Now having amassed a fairly sizable collection of these via gifts and tokens of appreciation over the years, I'm delighted to see these will be recognised in any John Lewis store, a fact verified only just this week when I had cause to go in for a quick purchase. As I have found out, and potentially many of you also, if you have a collection of plastic gift cards with pre-programmed expiry dates, this is nothing more than a customer con, a rip-off and a way to alienate customers. All the more so in these times of Covid and lockdowns, so when your gift card may have ‘expired’ you may have been rendered unable to shop, having had to isolate or had a Covid yourself and then you discover - hey ho - the ‘time limit’ is up, which effectively means that the store keeps your money and breaks the contract. I’ve always been an advocate that a gift card is in reality no different from a cash transaction and as such should not have any expiry attached to it. The biggest defaulter on this is a centre close to Watford where I have a lost many hundreds of pounds by either having been given very small gifts in electronic cards {which of course one would choose to accrue, rather than rush off to a not-so-local store to spend your £5 or £10}. Only you then turn up with £50 worth of electronic vouchers only to be told, sorry you’re out of time. So kol hakavod and well done to John Lewis plc, for sticking to principles. Boo to the not-so-loyal, Royal Mail. A mother saved her 3 year-old son after he fell through a manhole cover under their home, into a cesspit with 3000 gallons of sewage. Bertie Saul had fallen five feet into the pit, but turned on his back to stay afloat. His mother Christine (41) jumped into the pitch blackness after she heard Bertie
Jacqueline Curzon PHOTO: LARA MINSKY PHOTOGRAPHY
rules of the EU, the very block which FM Nicola Sturgeon wants Scotland to rejoin. However in return for sanctioning two freeports, Johnson forced her to choose between a chance of economic recovery or toadying up to the Scottish Green Party who are not just increasingly Marxist in their outlook, but fiercely opposed to freeports and who may still be planning some sort of guerilla tactic to undermine the plan. In exchange for the £52 million in start-up funding to be provided by the UK government, Sturgeon ignored the Greens, agreeing to then provide significant tax relief whilst the Treasury is expected to offer enhanced tax allowances. Behind the resolution of the freeport political wrangling was Kate Forbes, the SNP finance secretary, who UK negotiators found more pragmatic than her junior colleague Ivan McKee. Following a year long power play over the SNPs original plans to call them Greenports, the new ventures will be called Green Freeports, without any deference nor association to her ‘green’ allies, who have referred to this as ‘green washing.’ It’s possibly just as well then that the Greens were not called the Scottish Brains, or they would accuse her of
screaming for help. The pair from Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire were rescued by passers-by. His mother said, ‘I go in the water with him at swimming and I think these (lessons) saved his life.’ Alexei Navalny could face another 10 years in prison on further charges whilst the world is distracted with the Ukrainian crisis. As Putins most vocal critic, he was jailed last February for 2 1/2 years on old fraud chargers, after surviving a near-fatal poisoning which he blamed on the Kremlin. In a hearing scheduled this week at the penal colony of Pokrov, 60 miles outside Moscow, the court plans to consider additional fraud and contempt of court charges. Navalny said his case was “so pathetic they’re afraid to hold it in Moscow.’ His wife Yulia wrote on Instagram, ‘.. you cowards and scoun- Bentley Continental designed by Peter Blake drels, I demand I’m allowed to attend my husband‘s trial. He’s an honest man ‘brain washing.’ and you are keeping him in prison because Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play for he’s not afraid of the government.’ Navalny Women, has said that the SNP proposals to also faces a further 6 months in prison allow people to legally change their gender for contempt of court during one of the under Nicola Sturgeons trans-reforms will previous hearings. If Putin was not so much open up a ‘clear loophole that will allow a coward himself he would permit fair, people from other parts of the UK to obtain transparent and public hearings into these legal change in gender under the Scottish alleged offences. And enough of the tag-on system, before then demanding new sentencing. We all see it for what it is! birth certificates in their home countries.’ Boris Johnson has found time amongst She said alarm bells should be ringing at dealing with his weary domestic woes and Westminster and suggested the proposals foreign gallivants to pay a visit to Scotland, might be unconstitutional as SNP ministers where of course he is not particularly were ‘acting well beyond their devolved popular. There is no doubt that the majority powers.’ The SNP is determined to drop the of Scots do appreciate the financial benefits requirement for medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to obtain a gender of being part of the union. The PM said he recognition certificate. Worse - the period left behind a ‘golden opportunity’ for some in which someone must live in their ‘acof Scotland’s most depressed areas to stage quired gender’ would be cut from two years revivals by becoming freeports, where to only three months, additionally opening more generous taxation and business rates of the process for 16 and 17-year-olds. regimens could encourage entrepreneurs A doctor sacked from his job for refusing creating much-needed employment. This is an opportunity now only available thanks to acknowledge a transgender woman is taking his case to the High Court claiming to the UK being no longer subject to the
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those with ‘gender critical beliefs’ are being coerced and threatened. Dr David Mackereth (58) was dismissed in 2018 as a disability assessor for the DWP after refusing to renounce his Christian belief, that gender is determined biologically at birth. He told a manager he would not refer to a transgender woman as ‘she,’ adding that his faith meant he could not reasonably describe any 6 foot tall, bearded man as ‘madam.’ The following year the Reformed Baptist went to an unemployment tribunal in Birmingham, claiming he had been unfairly dismissed because of his Christian beliefs. He claimed the DWP‘s refusal to allow them to address the client by their biological sex breached his right to freedom of thought, conscience and right to practice his religion. However the tribunal judges sitting in October 2019 concluded religious belief is not protected by the Equality Act 2010, but was instead ‘mere opinion.’ The Christian Legal Centre supporting his challenge believe a recently landmark ruling in favour of Maya Forstater, who was sacked from her job at a think tank for saying people cannot change their biological sex, will help them overturn the tribunal ruling in the High Court next month. Forstater lost her case at tribunal but won a High Court appeal in 2019 when a judge found ‘gender-critical beliefs’ fell under the Equality Act, in part because they did not seek to destroy the rights of any trans-person. Dr Mackereth said, ‘the employment tribunal judgement from two years ago said … you have to believe in transgender ideology,’ and that is totalitarianism. A DWP spokesman said, ‘we cannot comment on ongoing legal proceedings.’ An energy supplier has apologised to 74 of its customers after their homes were accidentally issued Storm Arwen compensation cheques of more than £2.3 trillion. Compensation is been paid to tens of thousands of customers who were left without power when severe winds swept across the UK last year. Northern Powergrid confirmed 74 customers were sent compensation cheques of incorrect amounts. Haha! Should you be in possession of such a generous payment, do let us know if you are then the lucky bidder on the ‘pop art’ Bentley shown on the page, being sold at Bonhams on March 3rd. The car's cute design was the brainchild of Sir Peter Blake, who also designed the artwork for the Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album cover (1967). He was commissioned to design the artwork for Bentley in 2016 and decades further on Sir Peter still showed incredible savoir faire in contemporary design. The vehicle was snapped up at a cost of £250,000, but could be yours for a sporty and probably eye-catching £500,000! Love Jacqueline x
