A VC won’t get you into Britain

Rifleman Tulbahadur Pun then seized the Bren gun, and firing from the hip as he went, continued the charge on this heavily bunkered position alone, in the face of the most shattering concentration of automatic fire, directed straight at him….

Despite …overwhelming odds, he reached the Red House and closed with the Japanese occupants. He killed three and put five more to flight and captured two light machineguns and much ammunition. He then gave accurate supporting fire from the bunker to the remainder of his platoon which enabled them to reach their objective.

His outstanding courage and superb gallantry in the face of odds which meant almost certain death were most inspiring to all ranks and beyond praise.

Well, all that’s as maybe, but we still won’t allow Tulbahadur Pun into the country for his medical treatment. On the grounds that, in his application, he ‘failed to demonstrate strong enough ties to Britain’. It is sometimes said that satire is on its last legs, a redundant art form. This is why. We can no longer out-satirise what actually happens.

You may have read the story about rifleman Pun, the octogenarian from Nepal who won the Victoria Cross but has been denied entrance to Britain for the medical treatment he urgently needs. You may have considered the whole thing a simple mistake, a bureaucratic cock-up, the sort of stuff that happens from time to time but can easily be put right. Well, it isn’t. I contacted the British Consul in Kathmandu and he told me that the furore notwithstanding, he stood by the decision. ‘If Mr Pun applied tomorrow and a member of my staff denied him entry on the same grounds, I would support that decision,’ said Richard Beeson. Orders from the Home Office in London, you see. That’s the same Home Office which lets in upwards of 100,000 immigrants every year and has lost track of where all the illegal immigrants are.