...not sauce for the gander

So the House of Lords has ruled that, on divorce, wives are entitled to "compensation" for loss of earnings as a result of giving up their career prospects to look after the home and children. Seems reasonable, but there's an unwritten assumption here that only women make career sacrifices for the benefit of the marriage. I'm sure I can't be alone in saying that, had I not been married with a relatively young family, my career would have taken a different course, and I would probably have ended up in a far better paid job. Problem was it would have meant moving to London, or commuting from here in the Midlands, and clearly either way it would have had a big effect (and after discussing it, I decided a detrimental effect) on my wife and children. So I passed it up. Like I say, I'm sure there are plenty of other husbands who have made similar decisions. So how is that taken into account? Who compensates us?

Shuffle, shuffle....

I had little time for Charles Clarke as Home Secretary, but I think he was pretty poorly treated by being sacked in the wake of the "deportation of foreign prisoners" affair. After all, he's only been in post just over a year, and the problem goes back way beyond that. He certainly didn't handle the way the news broke very well, but the punishment seems out of all proportion to the offence. And now we have John Reid, Gawd 'elp us! The words "frying pan" and "fire" spring to mind.

The real NHS

The Health Secretary got a lot of stick for suggesting that the NHS had just had its "best year ever", despite stories of job cuts and ward closures. I've recently had first hand experience of my local NHS hospital , and my take on this is that the standard of care is good, but the standard of attention leaves a lot to be desired, and this is purely down to staffing levels. The ratio of staff to patients simply isn't sufficient to allow for an acceptable level of response most of the time. You soon learn that you need to know you need something about 10 minutes or so before you actually need it - that being about the average time delay between asking for something and it happening. So if this is the "best ever"........!!

The prodigal returns

Well, I'm back - sort of. Not my old self - never will be again, but I'm a survivor. Can't guarantee daily posts but will do my best to maintain some sort of continuity. Plenty gone on over the last month, mostly government ministers making fools of themselves. One thing that caught my eye was the almost hysterical reaction to a statement by a senior civil servant in the Home Office that he hadn't "the faintest idea" how many illegal immigrants were in the country. Now think about that for a moment. An illegal immigrant is one who has snuck in, and not gone through official channels - so how could anyone have any idea how many there are? The civil servant was simply giving an honest answer - the only honest answer he could possibly give. So why the furore?

Apologies

If anybody is following this blog, I apologise for the sporadic nature of my recent posts, but personal matters have I'm afraid taken my life over recently, and I have found, and indeed am still finding it difficult to find the time, or the will, to maintain regular daily posts. I hope to resume in due course, but for the time being, I hope you will bear with me.