I HAVEN’T got anything against Paratrooper Stu Pearson’s right leg. The
problem is, neither has he.

Sergeant Pearson, 31, had his left leg blown off by a landmine in
Afghanistan 18 months ago. He’s now got a highly technical, hydraulics-aided
prosthetic limb, although he still needs to use a wheelchair when the
appendage becomes too painful.

But it seems that this leap forward has caused the Department of Work and
Pensions to declare the Queen’s Gallantry Medal holder as “fully fit”. He
therefore loses his £325 a month Disability Living Allowance but, more
irritatingly for Stu, he also loses his blue disabled parking badge.

As he says: “I can’t get my leg out of the car without opening the door as
wide as possible so have to park in disabled bays. They give blue badges to
people just because they’re fat these days, but a guy gets his leg blown off
for his country and doesn’t qualify.”

You can understand his anger. While Stu is struggling in from the far
reaches of car parks at Tesco or Lidl, those lying benefits scroungers with
a magical Tin Leg of Money dangling redundantly from their arms will be
rolling into the prime places, smug smiles of feigned injury firmly in
place. You can see them every day. They don’t even know how to walk with a
crutch, never mind put any weight on it.

When I come across one now I honestly feel like kicking their magical Tin
Leg of Money away while shouting: “It’s a miracle! This fat, anorak-wearing
fraud can now walk!”

Of course, doing so would see me arrested, charged and probably imprisoned,
where I’d have a rent-free room with a television, as many Class A drugs as
I could manage to take and, if you believe the tabloids, a constant supply
of hot and cold running prostitutes. The notion appeals all the more.

IF YOU want further evidence of the warped values of our sick society, you
need look no further than the case of the two elderly sisters from Wiltshire
who have had their fight to earn the same inheritance tax rights as gay
couples thrown out by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Joyce and Sybil Burton (89 and 82) have lived together in the same home
since birth. They have paid their taxes, cared for ageing parents until
death without any help from the state, had brothers who fought in the Second
World War and a sister who was a nurse throughout the Blitz.

Yet because of our shabby inheritance tax legislation, when one of the
sisters dies, the other will have to sell the £875,000 house and move out to
pay the £50,000 tax bill. Does that really seem fair to you? Who in their
right mind could possibly think that this was a reasonable demand by a
reasonable government?

As the sisters say: “If we were lesbians we would have all the rights in the
world. But we are sisters, and it seems we have no rights at all.”

Perhaps the nation’s usually verbose feminist movement might want to take up
the case of these horribly victimised old ladies? Because what’s going to
happen to one of them is a hundred times worse than being shouted at in the
street because you’ve got a moustache.

Reprinted with kind permission of Barry Beelzebub...for full column visit Bazza's website