RNLI - rescue service for all

LAST week I wrote an article explain- ing why it made total sense for the RNLI to withdraw its offer of £5 mil- lion towards the restoration of Birn- beck pier, in view of the uncertainties over ongoing maintenance and repair costs.

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The piece went online and attracted a deluge of responses, most pointing out that the real reason for the decision was that the RNLI needed all the money it could get to continue running its ‘illegal cross-channel taxi service’ for people - variously described as immigrants, emigrants and migrants (just to give you a flavour of the kind of contributors we are talking about).

Well, what do you expect? If you provide a public platform where bigots and racists can vent their odious opinions, that’s what's going to happen. The torrent of xenophobic comments considerably outweighed the views of those supporting the RNLI’s decision and wisely making the point that the lifeboat service does not choose who to rescue and who not: anyone in trouble at sea qualifies.

That's absolutely true: an emergency is an emergency. Lifeboats do not carry colour charts to check skin tones and decide who will or will not be brought aboard. A person in danger is just that: a person in danger, whether they be British, Asian, Jew or Jehovah's Witness, Freemason or vegan. the institution also remains studiously nonjudgmental about how casualties have ended up needing its assistance.

But talk to any lifeboat crew member privately and they will confirm - if you haven't already worked it out for yourself by watching Saving Lives at Sea - that a huge proportion of the 17,000 people helped each year (350 of whom owed their lives to it last year) are in trouble purely because of their own recklessness, carelessness or plain stupidity.

Now, the RNLI won't like me writing any of this. But I believe when unfounded accusations about ‘illegal taxi services’ are being flung around, it needs to be said in order to put the workings of our sea rescue service into perspective.