Home Blogs & Views Birmingham Mail Columnists Maureen Messent

Gurkha ban shame

Jun 1 2007

EIGHTY-four-year-old Gurkha Tul Bahadur Pun won the VC for Britain when he single-handedly wiped out a Japanese gun enclave in Burma during the last war.

Now he lives halfway up a Nepalese mountain and suffers a heart condition, asthma and diabetes.

This gallant old josher has to walk for 12 hours to pick up his miserly pension and has already sold his medal.

He wants to come to Britain to live out his remaining days - but a barely believable letter from the Home Office has thwarted his plan.

It tells him he has "failed to demonstrate that he has strong ties with the UK".

And this happens in a nation which has opened its borders to every crook who reckons Britain is an easy touch. Doesn't it make you furious?

News AlertsForums

Read more of Maureen Messent's views

Gong too far for Olympians

BRITISH success at the Olympics is joyous indeed – more so as we didn’t expect that shower of gold. Read

Facing up to the realities of conflict

IN HER crippling grief, bereaved mother Susan Smith will feel she must do something – anything to assuage her pain and blame all circumstances surrounding the death of her soldier son in Iraq in 2005. Read

Site Tools