Cathy Dobbs: We need to set a better example over bullying

But are we asking the impossible of us mere mortals? Just look at the hatred directed at Matt Hancock, who is currently in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. So many people can’t forgive how he stopped us all from saying final goodbyes to loved ones, while he cheated on his wife.

Then there’s Meghan Markle whose public attacks on our silent, steadfast royal family are causing criticism far and wide. From Kanye West to Donald Trump, no one is safe. The problem comes when reasonable criticism descends into the kind of name calling that you would expect to hear on a school playground. How can we expect our children to be kind to each other, when we struggle to do the same ourselves?

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When it comes to kindness you can’t get much better than the nurses in our hospitals. A recent visit reminded me how important they are to each and every one of us - looking after us when we are at our most vulnerable.

Huge pay increases may not be possible but the Government should redress mistakes made in the past, such as nursing students paying tuition fees and increases in paperwork. Brexit may also be blamed, but it’s vital we train our own nurses instead of taking them from countries that are experiencing their own desperate shortages.

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Figures from Migration Watch UK show that every asylum seeker placed in a hotel costs us 1.5 times the average monthly pay for an NHS nurse. Suella Braverman called it an “invasion” and even a BBC reporter has said the country is “defending itself against migrants”.

Even Macron has finally admitted that in Paris “at least half of the crime comes from people who are foreigners, either illegal immigrants or those who are waiting for a residence permit”.

We are starting to see this in the UK as Dover residents have been told to lock their doors and windows and people in Derbyshire are scared of migrants that fill two local hotels. We are kind-hearted in the UK, but we are being taken advantage of and it’s time to start standing up for ourselves.

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We have several trees in our back garden and that means there’s a lot of raking up of leaves at this time of year. This weekend I thought I’d have a go and it wasn’t long before I started to feel warm – the sun was out and it didn’t feel at all like November.

We haven’t needed to put the heating on for a few days and it reminded me of the first Covid lockdown when it was made much more bearable with a stretch of warm April sunshine.

Now we are the in the midst of the energy bills crisis, the English weather is being our friend yet again by reducing the need to heat our homes. See, even the weather can be kind to us!