Tony Porter Ponders: Scandals, Assisted Dying, Armouring of Council Property.

Let me get this right, in American a convicted felon can be elected by the electorate, who know he’s a convicted felon, to the position of President, but over here a MP had to quit after it was revealed that she had pleaded guilty to fraud by misrepresentation in 2014. She received a discharge without any further action against her over mistakenly claiming for a phone she thought was stolen but turned up later in a drawer. Though I feel it’s the lack of disclosure that did for her.

I was surprised to see that the Assisted Dying bill past in The Commons last week, it is a long long way of becoming law, but I fear of what it will mean for vulnerable people in the future, is this the start of how the movie, and later a TV show, Logans Run began, but in real life. The premise is that due to the lack of work and overpopulation, humans live a life of pleasure, until they reach thirty years old when their life is terminated in a ceremony called the carousel. Some try and escape, Logan being one.

I know this extreme, I am lucky has I have never watched anyone suffer a prolonged painful death, but I feel that this is a thin wedge of a very long wedge. I understand wanting to end suffering close to death, but I feel that once this is in place it will be extended to other, non-life ending, aliments. My mother, 89, has said a few times she wants to end her life, even though other than lack of mobility she is in good health. Would she, in the future, be one who it agreed that she could end her life?

I realise that that would not happen with the current wording, but in the future will you or you kids be assisted from life because someone deems you are no longer needed in society or a burden on the family. We recently lost the oldest man in the world who was 112, imagine in two hundred years the oldest person in Britain is forty.

More crisis at the Beeb, this time Greg Wallace, who has been accused of improper behaviour, despite possibly having been reported to management ten or more years ago. If they did nothing, then surely, they are as responsible for any proven discretions after that date and should face measures, just like, say people who worked for the CPS who did not charge Al Fayad and Savelle, despite so much evidence put before them.

Meanwhile in Wigan, work HAS started on the New Market Hall, a digger has revealed the foundations of the old precinct and a ‘road’ has been constructed within the site up Market Street, I assume to bring up heavy loads for the main construction. Also, the speed cameras have been replaced, and they now look like something from a prison or dystopian future, but in bright yellow, this is, rightly, to stop wanton vandalism on council property, again I say if anyone is found guilty of chopping them down recently, they should be ordered to pay the full amount for the replacement and ‘armouring’ of them. Taxpayers are paying enough already never mind picking up the bill to keep replacing these things.