Westminster and Whitehall dishonour Britain again

Need it be said that the treatment of the Gurkhas – by successive governments – is disgraceful and a harrowing indictment of the civil service and politicians alike? Have these fools no shame? Apparently not.

They came in their Sunday best — a sea of tweeds, brogues and blazers with gold buttons — and mingled politely opposite the Houses of Parliament. There was a lot of hip-hooraying and handshaking. It was the most British of protests. But while the thousand retired Gurkhas who gathered in London yesterday were certainly British in heart and mind, theirs was a campaign to become British by law. Last March, the Government said that all the Army’s Nepalese fighters who retired after 1997 would be entitled to pay and pension equal with the rest of the Army and would be allowed to settle in Britain. For those who retired before 1997, their pensions remained six times less than their British counterparts and they still have no automatic right to stay in Britain.