The news that the former Reform UK leader in Wales, Nathan Gill has been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years for taking pro-Russia bribes (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c891403eddet) will generate much satisfaction amongst his political opponents.
Locally, I am known (by the left wing/liberal politically correct, Woke cognoscenti) as a former member of UKIP, a so-called “climate change denier”, a “Brexiteer” and a member of the “Far Right”!
With Mr Gill’s removal from his family for the following 63 months, many of this cohort will seek to remind me of the many “failings of character” that people like me on the “Far Right” have – stressing that Mr Gill is fully deserving of his punishment and advising me of their deep satisfaction that this man has received his just deserts! They will of course conveniently ignore that there are many serious criminals convicted of offences involving violence, dishonesty and sexual abuse of minors who will have received lesser sentences than Mr Gill.
There are members of my family, now deceased, who served during the First World War and the Second World War. Some were NCOs and others held commissions. I’ve never been a member of the armed forces myself but my employment involved working for two employers who supplied the UK defence industry and this required that I sign the Official Secrets Act. One of the things I learned from service personnel was this: that when you are tough on your subordinates, you have to be even tougher on yourself. That you demand more from yourself than you do from your men. That is part of leadership.
We were – and to an extent still are – lucky in that we have a public house in our village. When I arrived in early 2014 there were in fact three “pubs” nearby. However there is now only one – but that is better than many villages in the UK.
From time to time, one of the regular things one hears in the British pub is one of the “regulars” broadcasting his opinion on topical matters to anyone who cares to listen and to everybody else who cares not to!
In cases such as Mr Gill’s it is quite common to hear these fellows broadcast their satisfaction of the outcome and may suggest that such as Mr Gill were not punished harshly enough.
Well, I have a challenge to any man so minded……
There is a person who was suffering from reasonably advanced cancer and has been through gruelling chemotherapy. Those of my readers who live locally know of whom I speak. Happily, this person has received the “all clear” and everybody who knows them are very greatly relieved. During their ordeal, this person showed great courage in the way they faced their illness.
There is a well known means of raising money for worthy causes and this is the so-called Charity Sky Dive. Well the charity Macmillan Cancer Support (https://www.macmillan.org.uk/fundraise/fundraising-ideas/physical-activity/skydiving) seeks persons to challenge themselves to perform a parachute jump for their charity.
These jumps can take two forms. They can be free-fall (one jumps out of an aircraft on your own, pulls the cord to activate the parachute and descend to the ground). Because of my age (I am in receipt of the Old Age Pension) no organisation in the UK will allow me to undertake this. Instead there is only the other option available for me; the “tandem parachute jump”. This is where one is harnessed to an experienced parachutist who jumps out of the aircraft and descends to the ground with you in front of them.
So my challenge to those who are happy to see Mr Gill serve longer in prison than many sex offenders, is to undertake a charity jump for Macmillan Cancer Support.
If they do, I will of course do a jump myself!
Somehow I do not think I’ll have to make that jump as these fellows are as many in Yorkshire like to say, are “….all mouth and no trousers”!