WHAT is it with this Government and this country? Anyone who displays a degree of loyalty or service is knocked down or penalised.

Firstly, the loyal servants of the Crown, the Gurkhas, are denied proper pension rights and residency in this country, resulting in them returning medals which are as precious to them as life itself.

Then we read of a Royal Marine who has lost three limbs in action and is refused maximum compensation from the Ministry of Defence, while typists within the same department who hurt their backs lifting boxes or are suffering from RSI get many hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation.

To top these follies, the Canadian wife of Northumberland soldier L/Cpl Andrew Crozier is refused permanent residency in this country and has had to decamp to Spain to apply formally to join her husband and live here.

Yet the cowardly killer of schoolteacher Philip Lawrence, a Portuguese national, has been told that when his unfitting sentence for murder is complete he can, to protect his human rights, remain in England.

When will these unjust situations cease? Not under this Government which punishes service, loyalty and respect for the UK.

Colin T Mortimer, Pity Me, Durham.