Kishwar Desai | Charles, Kate to both face surgery; Britain's kids fall behind in stature

So, while Parliament struggles against the “small boats”, and is trying to stop the tide of refugees and illegals flooding the small island, the real crisis in the country seems to be that the monarchy is human and can fall sick. To be fair, there was always a doubt about the wonderful and ever stoic, ever smiling Catherine, Princess of Wales — as she seemed to weather all storms without a hair out of place. Raising three children, fulfilling Royal duties, and remaining implacable and impeccable (as well as gloriously thin) made her into a superwoman. How could she, then, be unwell, and even be hospitalised? And while no one knows what exactly has happened to her — there is speculation that the abdominal surgery could be “fairly serious” as she requires hospitalisation for two weeks and is expected to be out of the public eye for at least a few months.

Unlike the air of mystery surrounding Catherine — King Charles has been far more open about his troubles — and needs surgery for his enlarged prostrate. And he will also be out of commission for a bit. In which case who will preside over important functions or if anything is required? Two of those who could have stood in — Princes Andrew and Harry cannot be asked as they are disgraced, and so that leaves Queen Camilla, apart from Princess Anne…and of course a few others. The Prince of Wales, William, would have jumped in — but he wants to be by his wife’s side as she recovers in hospital.

The news may be bad, but let us note that the work ethic in the monarchy has been very strong. The late Queen worked till her final day as documents show. She managed to see Boris Johnson, the outgoing Prime Minister and greet her new Prime Minister Liz Truss in the afternoon and then took part in a Privy Council meeting on Zoom citing a medical advice for not being there in person, made a list of some honours she was bestowing and put the list in her Red Box before calling it a day and seventy plus years of reign. Phew! That is a lot of things to do before you pass on — and in a single day. She deserves to rest in peace and in the memory of her people.

I remember there was a time when Charles Dickens wrote about the miserable and hungry childhood which awaited those born here — and so it comes as a surprise that our children, while growing up, are falling behind in terms of their stature. In the worldwide list of children’s height and weight, British girls are 27 places further down at 96th and boys 33 down at 102nd. The healthiest ones are in French Polynesia. Being away from modern life the Polynesians lead a healthy life with good diet. Our children eat ultra-processed foods and fail to grow up. Needless to add, politicians are on the job promising redress it soon after the election.

The New Year has also brought to light a most unfortunate scandal from the days when Theresa May was Prime Minister (remember her? we have had so many Tory Prime Ministers I have lost count). And as we all want to go digital and rely on IT — it is a good lesson to be learnt about the dangers of technology.

Back in 2015 in the heady days of Conservative-Liberal Democratic government, there were many instances of financial losses in post offices round the country. Since post offices serve as banks in rural communities where people deposit money and do banking, it was a shocking discovery that funds were missing. Postmasters, honest simple people, were blamed for the missing money. In many cases, they were sacked and some were convicted. It fell to a hard-headed sub-postmaster, Mr Bates, to fight his corner to prove his innocence. Recently an ITV program based on Mr Bates has reawakened the fight and a television programme had the power to do what politicians had ignored. It has been revealed that the post offices had a computer, Horizon, produced by Fujitsu which had a glitch and miscalculated the numbers in cash registers. The postmasters were not aware but got the blame and lost their jobs and pension.

Some of these were people of Indian origin who had taken on a post office job as they do grocery shops.

As many as 550 sub postmasters suffered from this scandal. Parliament is considering a massive pardon for all the postmasters who suffered injustice. It is not clear whether convictions can be reversed and deleted from record. While people will now know they were innocent, how to compensate them remains to be seen.

And like elsewhere in the world, today, there will be a wide-spread celebration among the UK NRIs due to the opening of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. It is fast becoming a global festival, going beyond religion.   

And on 30th January, in a sombre commemoration, we will gather to lay flowers at the feet of another Ram Bhakt, Mahatma Gandhi, at his statue at Parliament Square, in front of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Do join us.