Theresa May's Lancaster House Brexit Speech, 17 January 2017 (Full Text)

It's a valid question (and of course, I wish Markham a long and healthy retirement). A pensioner in the UK has the potential of costing the tax-payer a wagon-ful of money on care home costs.

BTW, as a taxpayer, I am happy to see my taxes pay people's benefits, pensions, and healthcare. I am less happy seeing the companies making huge profits pay paltry sums to the tax man.

I assume you're referring to the "Surunder Singh" route? According to online groups specialising in this as far as Malta is concerned (and a lot of Brits+non EU spouses do use Malta as a springboard), the received wisdom is the route will remain open until March 2019 but its continued existence after that date is rather unlikely.

For the most part, "leavers" have been acting magnanimously, most of us have not acted triumphalist or rubbed salt into our opponents' wounds. The vast majority of the population now understand and accept the referendum result and will join together in making a success of Brexit. But there is a faction, egged-on by Messrs Fallon and Clegg, who seek to derail Brexit by whatever means, including using the unelected House of Lords to vote against it at every stage. There are even those who have challenged the referendum result in the High Court and have sought - and had granted - complete anonymity: what serpentine cowards they are.

I understand that there are a number of bilateral agreements between the UK and Malta which pre-date Malta joining the EU including provisions such as Child Benefit.

You are more fortunate than many here including Timmers and Methersgate who have had to pre-pay NHS cover for their spouses and, in Andrew's case, his step-son.

It seems you don't really understand Philippine culture and customs.

Yes, you don't see many care homes in the Philippines.

It's unlikely to be that long or that healthy; I have just been diagnosed as suffering from COPD. But I would much rather grow increasingly infirm here in Malta with family to take care of me, than be in the UK and have the local authority put me in a care home (having sold my house to pay for it) where I'm likely to suffer neglect even to the point of being forced to lay in my own excrement for days.

That's a fair point. However, those companies do employ people - who all pay NHI and IT - and very often eco-systems grow around those large companies providing further sources of employment and tax revenues. Juncker, when he was Prime Minister of Luxembourg, attracted many multinationals to base their headquarters there with promises of very low rates of corporate taxation. That has been so successful that married couples pay no income tax there on salaries below €20,000 and around €2,000 for those paid up to €38,700 a year.

There are care homes in the Philippines but for two distinctly different sets of clients. Firstly, there are homes run by Catholic nuns where they care for sick, elderly and infirm priests and nuns. And there are those for elderly mainly Americans whose families can't or won't care for them but would rather ship them off to the Philippines at a lesser cost than for one in the US.

Since writing the above I have discovered than none of the four who have mounted this latest challenge to Brexit are British citizens. One is a non-EU national married to a EEA national who, along with the remaining three plaintiffs, also EEA nationals, moved to the UK under the Single Market's 'freedom of movement' laws. They're demanding judicial scrutiny of the exit deal and claim that the government is giving them no certainty in their ability to continue living in the UK. In fairness to the government, Mrs May has tried to provide that certainty but her entreaties were rebuffed by Merkel and the EU's Grand Panjandrums.

Firstly, my apologies for your diagnosis and here's hoping the doctors take good care of you. I have a friend who was recently diagnosed too.

Maybe my question was not clear. If not I will elaborate. What happens if any Brit needs a care home in Malta? Who pays for that?

As you say, in the UK people are being forced to sell their homes to alleviate the perceived burden on the tax payer. Would the UK need to pay the full care home costs for any British citizen in a care home in the UK? If so, then yes a Brit retiring abroad could potentially cost the tax payer more (not that this tax payer begrudges helping people during illness.)

Secondly, without wishing to be too blunt, but I know of a number of cases of elderly Westerners being ditched / placed into a care home by their younger Filipina wives or kids when the Westerner starts getting too ill. I also know my wife's aunt has been abandoned by her children during her illness -i.e. as with every country's "culture" and "customs" it is not wise to assume that everyone conforms. We all know of stories where a Westerner has made certain assumptions but got their fingers badly burned.

I also know of some Filipinos who have had affairs whilst working abroad - doing little to support their families back home.

My question wasn't implying that you will be forced into a care home, nor that your family won't take care of you - I apologise if that's the way you took it. The question was non specific and generic.

Thank you for your good wishes and for clarifying your question, the answer to which is "Good question! I really don't know!" There are care homes here and, I'm told by Gozitans, that they are very good too, a good percentage of their staffs are Filipino. Or Brit! I suspect that if push came to shove and I could no longer be cared for at home, for whatever reason, that I could potentially become a burden on the beleaguered taxpayer back in Blighty though unlike my counterparts in Grantham or Gloucester, Gozo is warm and sunny for most of the year.

I too have heard the stories of older westerners being fooled by younger Filipinos. If this happens in the Philippines, there's no point in notifying the authorities who'll always take the girl's side even if she's stolen all his money and valuables - and I do know of cases where that has happened. Strangely though, all the victims were either American or Canadian; I know of no Brit who was scammed in this way. The sad case of Thomas Hunt is well-known by Herbie, the editor of "Gold Star Daily News" in Cagayan De Oro who helped track down Mr Hunt's wife who abandoned him literally on the street, having sold the house he paid for and emptied his bank accounts. I took my time choosing my girl, I didn't fall for the first mini-skirted, dusky young maiden who fluttered her eyelashes or waved her cellphone at me - besides, mine prefers to wear Daisy Dukes!

At Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons this lunchtime, everyone's favourite party leader-cum-revolutionary demonstrated the enormity of his idiocy by dropping a Brexit bomb which promptly backfired:

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Laugh - I nearly wet myself!

It is certainly unwise for a

A mini skirted dusky maiden fluttering her eyelashes...



These are highly dangerous, as you may see...

Her wedding attire was more of what I had in mind . Is that a pre-short rations photo ... taken in Subic?