The removal centre that doesn't

/
Why this woman's story shames Scotland
Human rights campaigners and churches last night demanded the closure of Dungavel Removal Centre – Scotland's "Guantanamo" – saying the imprisonment of vulnerable women and children behind a wire fence was unacceptable in 21st-century Scotland.

They also said it was time the Scottish Government stopped saying immigration was a Westminster matter and found a solution for injustices happening on Scottish soil. The fresh outrage came after The Scotsman revealed the harrowing testimony of Corellie Bonhomme, 35, a Canadian national, who told of her despair inside Dungavel, and of how she was pinned down by immigration officials and had her two-year-old daughter, Fi, snatched from her.
Read the whole story of this shabby affair.

I fucking well HATE what this country has become

/
Two tier, one life

I'm no supporter of John Redwood but he's right on this matter, as far as I'm concerned.
A woman dying of cancer was denied free National Health Service treatment in her final months because she had paid privately for a drug to try to prolong her life.

The government’s visceral hatred of co-payment for health is as absurd as it is dangerous. Practically everyone who uses the NHS practises co-payment. The very system Labour set up more than half a century ago soon required co-payment in the form of prescription charges. It always allowed private sector pharmacies to offer over the counter drugs to people for self treatment, or for treatment under the advice of the pharmacist. NHS Doctors have been known to tell people to buy an over the counter drug rather than a prescription one where this could be cheaper or better for them.

The discovery that the Health Secretary now thinks that if someone buys some drugs that are not available on the NHS from a private Doctor they should be banned from all NHS treatment for that condition is bad and mad. Logically on this Labour view if I try to treat myself for an ailment at home using over the counter medicines, and then have to go the GP because it is not working, he should say I have no right to free treatment for that as I have been spending my own money directly on the condition. Co-payment and alternative systems are fundamental to meeting the real pressures on health care in this country. The NHS could not manage without a flourishing pharmacy sector alongside it to handle many of the day to day and smaller items.