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From the front line…

Let’s put those ‘parties’ to bed and focus on the real stories.

BY JACQUELINE CURZON

Boris is prepared - it’s official! Aha! You were thinking about him preparing for the transparent {sorry, redacted} Sue Gray report into all the festive partying, but alas no. He’s getting prepared for sanctions, should ‘one Russian toecap’ cross the border with Ukraine. Put to one side the partying and outrageous hypocrisy shown at Downing Street during covid, he has done much during his tenure that most would applaud. When compared to his political predecessor Blair, who broke up the UK by devolution, took us into a war which then led to mass migration, home grown terrorism, who ruined public finances and private pensions, he gets the Order of the Garter, albeit belatedly. I think we should cut Boris some slack and let him concentrate on far more worthy matters - at home and abroad. Goodness knows there’s enough to keep him busy! Returning to Ukraine then, Boris was attending a military briefing in Kiev whilst Vladimir Putin was speaking in Moscow. Johnson made his comments shortly after Putin broke his many weeks-long silence over the crisis. The prime minister urged the Russian president to step back, saying it was ‘holding a gun to the head of Ukraine,’ with now more than 120,000 troops amassed at the border. It’s very obvious that Ukraine will fight fiercely and to the death, to avoid annexation and be subsumed into Greater Russia. Speaking beside him, the Ukrainian President, Volodymir Zelensky, said the West should consider imposing punitive measures in Russia now, not after an invasion, quoting ‘prevention is better than cure.’ Poland and Britain have joined the US in supplying Ukraine with weapons, and pushing for a sanctions package to deter any invasion. Perhaps Poland and the Baltic states have in fact most to lose, given their historic relationship with Russia. Around 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers have gone through a British run training programme called Operation Orbital and Mr Johnson has also pledged £88 million in aid to assist government reform. They are also preparing to double the number of troops deployed to Estonia, dispatch warships and jets to Nato’s eastern flank to “send a message” to Moscow. Other members of Europe - particularly Germany - have refused to provide any weaponry, calling instead for ‘caution on sanction packages,’ which obviously relates to the possible suspension of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline by Putin. This caution could end up as words of sheer bravado as similar pledges were waved around in 2014 when Crimea was annexed, but in reality those words made little difference.

British civil servant Nisha De Silva, who joined the board of Amnesty International in 2020, has been called to step down and resign as a trustee because of a publication of a report that may now encourage crimes against Jews. She is also in a senior role with the Ministry of Justice. Amnesty International released a 278 page document accusing Israel of being ‘an apartheid state’ with regard to its treatment of Palestinians, and it was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority which said it hoped it would open the way for Israel to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court. However it has raised accusations of antisemitism with Yair Lapid, Israel’s Foreign Minister who said, “I hate to use the argument that if Israel were not a Jewish state, nobody in Amnesty would argue against it, but in this case there is no other possibility.’ Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel said, ‘… and this vitriolic propaganda is liable to encourage crimes against Jews in Britain and overseas. Those charged with these crimes may invoke the report in justification.’ He also called on the Charity Commission and HMRC to evaluate whether sponsorship of the report was compatible with its charitable status. The report alleges the Israeli state maintains ‘an institutionalised regime of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis.’ Agnès Calamar, Amnesty’s Secretary General, said she rejected these claims of anti semitism, citing Israel’s ‘cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control’ clearly amounts to apartheit. The MoJ said their robust procedures to avoid any potential conflicts of interest have been followed. If you say so!

India’s most famous snake handler Vava Suresh (47), who was once described by Prince Charles as a ‘living wonder’ is critically ill in hospital after being bitten by a Cobra during a rescue attempt. He has suffered more than 250 snakebites in his career and gained cult status across India through a popular YouTube show Snake Master, in which he captures some of the country’s deadliest reptiles. Recently Mr Suresh estimated he’d caught and rescued more than 50,000 snakes, including 200 deadly

King Cobras after they strayed into residential areas in Kerala. However earlier this week he responded to an emergency call, but was then bitten whilst putting a 10 foot Cobra into a secure gunny bag.

He then became unconscious after a few minutes and was taken to a private hospital where antivenom was administered. Doctors have warned it will be a difficult recovery as previous snakebites have left him with long-term liver damage. The Prince of Wales paid homage to Mr Suresh during a visit to Kerala in 2013, saying ‘if even an elephant will die in an hour after the bite of a king cobra, how did you manage to save so many?’

‘You’re a living wonder and I salute your love for you reptilian friends.’

Carrie Johnson and her charity Aspinall Foundation have come under fire in their initiative to rewild British elephants back to Africa. Professor Keith Somerville of the University of Kent says elephants ‘don’t see people as a threat but a source of food and water, which will impede any progress in the intended wilding.’ The elephants are currently housed at Howletts Wildlife Park in Kent, but are scheduled for transport to Kenya. A spokesman for Aspinall said, ‘the Foundation has a 30-year history of successful rewilding projects around the globe.’

Leading medical researchers from Kings College and Harvard, have warned that medicalised language designed to make the transgender community more included, risks alienating and dehumanising women. Who in their right mind would sign up being ‘a birthing person with a cervix/ parent who has given birth/ lactating parent/ chest feeding their baby.’ As opposed to being a woman, recently having given birth, lactating and breastfeeding her newborn. Professor Jenny Gamble, one of the authors of the paper, said that gender identity should not be confused with biological sex as it could lead to “health consequences and deeper and more insidious discrimination against women.“

It was telling that a u-turn on mandatory jabs for NHS workers would be on the cards. Warnings of crippling staff shortages were looming, with the cutoff date fast approaching. Whilst in the Royal Free I heard several staff share their anxieties that they would either have to resign or be sacked. Whilst I respect an individual having a choice, we as patients seemed to have less choice, were quizzed on our status, regarded disdainfully if the answer was negative, and subjected to covid testing every 48 hours. It feels a bit rough that staff were instructed to take lateral flow tests twice weekly, whilst dealing with highly vulnerable people. Care home workers are now expected to sue their employers if they were forced out of jobs because they refused vaccination. I look forward to the day when covid is treated like flu, a mild illness, and students, employees and such like don’t down tools for 7-10 days at a time. The world needs to get back to business.

An obituary of note is that of Niall Kirkpatrick (62), who has died in a road accident. Kirkpatrick was an award-winning craniofacial plastic surgeon, internationally recognised for his charitable work in Vietnam, where he changed the lives of many. His charity, Facing the World, was created in 2006, and he served as chairman from 2013-2018. They worked in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including Vietnam where high incidences of congenital birth defects were prevalent, largely due to the use of Agent Orange by US troops during the Vietnam War. Demand was such that the charity began training and equipping local surgeons to perform some of these complex operations to enable children with stigmatising disfigurements to try and lead a more normal life. His father was an obstetrician and gynaecologist and Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and he and his two younger brothers were educated at Wellington College. He initially trained in dentistry at Guy’s London, but a short spell with a maxillofacial surgeon prompted a change of direction. On his first day he saw surgeons dealing with the fatalities and injuries patients had suffered in a major traffic accident just that morning. He then trained in plastic surgery with fellowships at GOSH and Chelsea and Westminster hospital, additionally training in head and neck surgery at the Royal Marsden and aesthetic surgery at the Wellington. He was highly regarded and cited by the Sunday Times as amongst the best Plastic Surgeons in the country. He loved outdoor life, and enjoyed pastimes such as skiing, walking and climbing the Alps. It was on one such recent expedition, on a cold, sunny day in Essex with his brother and a friend, that he was killed when his bicycle was involved in a collision with a car. He is survived by his wife and three sons.

And lastly, a prisoner who escaped by dislocating his thumb and slipping out of his handcuffs has been sentenced to 9 months in jail. Ryan Searle (39) had been taken from HMP Bullingdon to hospital, and once in the lavatory he dislocated his thumb to slip the cuffs before wrapping the chain connecting his handcuffs to his guard. He gave himself up in the car park and was told at sentencing the prison has ‘shown him nothing but kindness.’ He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to attempted escape and assaulting an emergency worker.

Jacqueline Curzon

PHOTO: LARA MINSKY PHOTOGRAPHY

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