More Spongers!

[FredPuli43]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3913469.ece

Honestly, The Times is getting like the Mail ! Police dogs to get "pensions" indeed! Not quite.

[jno]

tut, quite right; they should be given a retirement party with lots of bones, then shot.

[pixie373]

Fair enough. They should be looked after when they retire.

[Zeuhl]

Isn't there a charity run by an ex copper which takes police horses to retire in France to save them from the knackers yard?

[FredPuli43]

It turns out, later in the piece, that the handlers are to be allowed to claim for vets' bills only. They are not being paid a doggy pension to maintain the dog. To be fair to The Times they did put "state pension" in quotation marks apparently because someone called it 'a pension' .

[jno]

I don't really see why there should have to be charities to do this sort of thing. If the police wish to use dogs, they need to remember they're for life, not just for Christmas. The animals should be budgeted for properly.

[youngmafbog]

Dont really see any problem with this. The dog has performed it's duties often against some vile scum so it deserves some reward.

[Zeuhl]

Will they be forced to work until 60?

That's 9 in doggy years isn't it?

[tamborine]

Confirmation of no confidence in RSPCA

[anotheoldgit]

FredPuli43

/// Honestly, The Times is getting like the Mail ///

Yes we all know that you won't be happy until there is only The Morning Star left.

[boxtops]

It's not a pension, it's a payment to help with vets' bills.

[viv38]

Good, so they should.

[jno]

Yes we all know that you won't be happy until there is only The Morning Star left.

Huh? Mayhap you have the wrong FredPuli.

[Zeuhl]

/Yes we all know that you won't be happy until there is only The Morning Star left. /

aog - oh dear!

[FredPuli43]

AOG, I think you have the wrong FredPuli, too. But we know your distorted view of the world, so I accept the remark for what it is. Since when has a committed Tory voter, and former member of the Westminster Conservative Party ( I no longer have a home there), with a now, ex, wife who is on the A list of Tory candidates and who fought a general election for the Party, been happy when only a communist paper is left? I must say, that takes some imagination, and, I may say, delusional fantasy, but we can judge it for what it is.

I have the misfortune of having paid enough tax,including this year alone, to support a good percentage of the misguided quasi-socialist policies of various governments, but feel free to think of me as a fifth columnist nonetheless. Power to the people !

[craft1948]

So am I in with a chance then Fred?

[SpikeyBush]

A friend of mine took in a retired dog from HMRC. Whenever she was let off the lead in the park she would head for the bushes and come out with loads of syringes and dead joints expecting a reward in the form of a very bouncy ball.

[shoota]

Once a cop, always a cop.....

[FredPuli43]

Let us return to our sheep, AOG. The Times made the mistake of putting out a misleading headline: there was no "state pension" proposed for dogs. It was only a proposal that police dogs who incurred veterinary bills should not thereby be a burden on the officers with whom they were living in retirement.

That, as must well know, being an avid and analytical reader of the Daily Mail, is one of that paper's favourite journalistic devices. You. of course, would recognise it for the deception it is, but others do not have your critical skills, any more than you would fail to notice how often the first paragraph is not borne out by the rest of the piece. Others can't be bothered to read that far, it seems, and nor do they go to the sources thereof to discover the sources are being accurately represented.

That The Times put the statement in quotes is good but does not provide the paper with a defence, as was pointed out by numerous readers in the comments section.

[pixie373]

Lol. I'm just stalking your avatar now, shoota. My apologies!

[FredPuli43]

Craft, you certainly are, and I sympathise !