Flying Blind

The British government has come under fire for trialling a new military equal opportunities programme during the war with Iraq. In response to the RNIB’s recent statement that unemployment rates for visually impaired people are 2.5 times the national average, Geoffrey Hoon personally hired several sightless sky-captains to pilot helicopters around the combat zone.

To date, there have been no official reports on the success of this programme but independent spectators are reported as saying that “it perhaps wasn’t the wisest thing to do. That young Hoon must be blind or stupid to not realise he was asking for trouble with this kind of venture.” To offer full accessibility in compliance with the Disability Discrimation Act 1995, the government has also initiated sister schemes to this programme, namely ‘Retards into Parliament’ and the currently Kuwait-based ‘Special (Needs) Forces’.