A Small Victory For Common Sense But A Huge Victory For A Small Hero

Sometimes you wonder if there is any justice in the world don't you? You hope that somewhere deep in the soul of politicians there is a small light blinking in the darkness that tells them every action does not have to be rewarded in terms of fiscal reimbursement. You hope that in an era where prisoners can sue the Home Secretary because they aren't given the correct type of knives and forks to eat their meals, where a rapist (who is in the country illegally in the first place) can be given legal aid to fight his deportation and where hooded extremists can walk the streets carrying placards proclaiming death to the infidels, but an ex-World Champion is arrested twice for driving his huge 'fuck-off' lorry down Whitehall in protest against a war in a far off country, you hope that natural justice can be done once in a while to balance the moral books.

Well Sisters and Brothers it has been.

When I was small my Dad and my two Grandfathers used to speak of their admiration for the Gurkha's. Forget the 'blood money' stories or the fact that these little guys joined the army as a way of escaping poverty, that's what most conscripts did in the First World War - very few people followed Kitcheners plea because they wanted a holiday in the trenches, they joined because in the nine short years that comprised the Edwardian era and the four that began the House of Windsor years under George V was a shortage of real jobs. Men took the Kings Shilling because there was bugger else all coming there way.

Anyway I digress. The Home Office said last night that it has reversed its decision to deny a visa to a veteran Nepalese Gurkha soldier who won Britain's highest military honour for valour.
Fighting for the British Army, Tul Bahadar Pun, 84, won the Victoria Cross in the Second World War for single-handedly storming Japanese machine-gun positions. He wanted to come to Britain for medical treatment which is difficult to access from his remote hut in Nepal.
The Home Office originally declined him a settlement visa, telling him: "You have failed to demonstrate that you have strong ties with the UK."

Strong ties? How much stronger than those ties be? This is a man who was awarded, well you can see from the previous paragraph what he was awarded and why.

"The circumstances surrounding Tul Bahadur Pun's case are clearly exceptional and in light of this Home Secretary John Reid and I have reviewed the case and made the decision to grant Mr Pun a settlement visa immediately," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said.
Pun has heart problems, asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure and requires daily medication which is not always available in Nepal.

His bravery won him an invitation to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 and he had tea with her mother, queen Elizabeth.

There's a wonderful sense of British irony here that somebody who put his life on the line for his adoptive country during the Second World War is granted the right to enter the U.K on the same day that the debate over whether or not David Beckham should recieve a Knighthood or not kicks off.

Is it me or does the country have its moral compass pointing in the wrong direction?