’TIS the season to be jolly… oh yes it is!

Well, I very much hope that is the case for both my readers. However, these last few days before Christmas have given me huge cause to be anything but ‘jolly’. It is the time when governments traditionally try and slip announcements out that are potentially controversial and hope the world isn’t looking.

A bill going through its final stages in Parliament is a direct threat to our democratic principles, and is extremely worrying. It is proposed that prior to being given your ballot paper at the polling station you and I will have to produce photographic evidence to prove who we are.

That evidence could be a driving licence or a passport or a free document obtained from the local authority. For pensioners it could be their bus pass, but a student can’t use their student card. The legislation is geared to enabling the elderly to vote but not the young or poor. I wonder why that could be?

Could it possibly be anything to do with this government attempting ‘gerrymandering’ (fiddling the voting by making it harder for the young and poor to vote, ie those who are more naturally inclined not to vote Conservative?)

This government’s own research demonstrates very clearly that those with severely limiting disabilities, the unemployed and those without qualifications do not have a driving licence or passport, and are disinclined to get one just so they can vote.

In the current economic climate not many unemployed, for instance, are going to go out and pay for a passport which they won’t be using. This is a clear and appalling attempt by the Conservative government to reduce numbers likely to vote against them.

The legislation is taking a steamroller to crack a nut. Again, the government’s own statements clearly demonstrate there is virtually no problem of voter fraud, where one resident pretends to be someone else so they can vote more than once.

This will be an expensive and time-consuming addition to “the system”. It is both unnecessary and unwanted. We all want our elections to be safe and fair. There is no meaningful or significant evidence to suggest they are not. These measures are currently due to be introduced for next May’s local elections. Be warned. I was just calming down from the above when I read that our government ministers are dismantling the protections currently in place for torture victims and asylum seekers arriving on small boats, while quadrupling the time they can he held in detention centres.

Healthcare? Downgraded. Legal advice? Downgraded. Communications and sleeping arrangements? Worse. Various charities have criticised the government for making it easier to ‘get away with horrors’.’

These new measures are all due to come into law on January 5, without any parliamentary scrutiny or debate. Utterly shameful and beyond contempt. These draconian measures are highlighted as a direct consequence of sickening events in the Channel in the last few days, when four more refugees drowned trying to get to safety.

Let’s for one moment pause and consider those desperate people. Most of them were Afghans, fleeing the inhuman regime of the Taliban. Remember, we had abandoned that country to the Taliban not so long ago, but made out there were various safe and legal ways to gain access to the UK. There simply aren’t. This was a dreadful inhumane act by this government. Sadistic.

So, it seems to me that we have ministers who, having benefited by the generous and caring nature of this country are pulling up the safety net and saying, ‘I’m alright Jack, but I don’t want to help you.’

Shameful. They then have the sheer nerve to hypocritically go on TV, and pontificate about the traditional values that this country’s people have, of caring and compassion for all. Sickening in the extreme.

Yes, it’s Christmas and yes,’tis the season to be jolly… but there are more people than ever this year who have little to be jolly about. We can all help however by responding positively to those in need. Perhaps a neighbour; perhaps a street sleeper; perhaps a single mum trying to feed a family; perhaps… perhaps… perhaps a refugee spending their first Christmas away from home.

Remember Christ was a refugee, who would almost certainly have been turned away from the UK if Mary and Joseph, his parents, had attempted to come here now. OK, so I’m a bleeding heart Liberal... yes, and proud of it. Happy Christmas one and all.