The John Blunt column

THE armed forces brasshats are dead against it and so are the troops in the ranks, so why is the government preparing to scrap the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the military?

Answer: another surrender to Europe.

For afraid of a test-case judgment against the rule in the European courts - one that would trigger a flood of compensation claims from the 4,000 men and women forced to leave the services since 1979 because of their homosexuality - the Cabinet is, we are told, preparing to lift the ban before the verdict.

Either way, it looks like costing the country a packet - as much as £1billion, it is estimated - as booted-out gays sue for damages.

The government's backing down and lifting the ban in the face of military opposition - and, arguably that of most voters - is one thing, but, surely, the passing of the compensation bill to the taxpayers will be another moral retreat.

For, we have already forked out £55million in damages to servicewomen who got themselves pregnant in contravention of the forces rules, but who, thanks to the inability of Britain to uphold its own laws, were subsequently deemed to have been unlawfully dismissed. Now, the ex-forces' gays are queuing up for their gravy train - despite them knowingly and willingly having broken the laid-down conditions of service when they joined up.

Fair? Far from it.

Mad? Certainly.

For how can justice or equal rights be served by the sanctioning of deliberate rule-breaking?

And as for discrimination, what about that against the poor old taxpayer picking up the tab for all this?

Harriet learns truth about New Labour

GIVEN that so many of Labour's huge number of MPs have little to do, it is hardly surprising that many of them should now spend their time coming out in their true colours - as spend, spend, spend sorts.

For what else can one make of the "bit of a roasting" given to Social Security Minister Harriet Harman at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party over government plans to cut benefits for single mothers by up to £11 a week?

It is fine for them to carp now, but did they when Labour agreed this policy before the election and they were after the hard-pressed taxpayers' votes? The fact is that Britain has 1.7million lone parents costing the country nearly £10 billion - more than double the amount seven years ago - and receiving preferential treatment over married couples with children.

What is wrong with equalising the system? Or is it that many Labour MPs are content for the benefits bill to grow and for the system to work against the traditional, stable family so that we may have still more single parents, not fewer?

Luxury of time-wasting

UNEMPLOYED Shaun Doran and his wife Julie are not happy with the new £100,000 six-bedroom home built for them and their 11 children at taxpayers' expense, where they live rent-free on almost £350-worth of state benefits a week.

They claim that the property with white everything - walls, kitchen and bathrooms - is too difficult to keep clean.

That was after a housing association inspector called at their home near Llandeilo in West Wales and complained it was not being kept clean enough.

It seems that as well as enjoying a bucketful of benefits, the Dorans believe they have another entitlement - the right to their own scruffiness.

I don't know whether benefits dependency encourages such a lack of self-pride. But perhaps, with that in mind, someone doing the dishing out ought to ask what is the wisdom of showering this family with so much - when, for all to see in the photographs of the Doran's king-size home last week, a satellite TV dish adorned its exterior. Hard-working, self-supporting tax-paying families who cannot afford this time-wasting luxury, but manage out of their stretched resources to pay for a vacuum cleaner and cleaning materials and make use of them must, I am sure, wonder where they are going wrong.

Not-so-wise a decision for the season of goodwill

I AM NOT sure that I get the connection, but the guidelines issued by the Association of Christian Teachers so that the Three Kings may only be allowed a "symbolic" walk-on part in school Nativity plays - on the grounds that, in truth, they were never at the manger - are apparently to do with something more than strict historical accuracy.

For, says the association's Richard Wilkins: "There appears to be a fair bit of confusion among teachers as to the best way to celebrate Christmas without alienating or offending the non-Christian community."

Do we take it, then, that what is afoot is more of the baleful bending-over-backwards political correctness that permeates a society ruled by fear of giving offence - when none ought to be taken and none might be?

For what offence might the Three Wise Men provoke if they retain the co-star billing they have had for donkey's years in kiddies' Nativity plays? I can only imagine that the fevered brain that has slaved over these guidelines has concluded that, particularly now they have been branded as interlopers, the Magi might be construed by members of the non-Christianity community as representatives of themselves paying enforced homage to Jesus and that in order to minimise the umbrage they might take at that, it is as well to have the Three Kings on stage for as short a time as possible or, arguably, not at all.

But, for heaven's sake, this is the little 'uns Nativity play we are talking about - the event at which mums go all wet-eyed as their little angels enact the Christmas story in the way that generations of schoolchildren have done without a hint of a sub-plot aimed at upsetting or insulting anyone.

Only a paranoid mind would imagine there was one and an even barmier one would start apologising for it in advance.

The opinions expresed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.