There are few poppies on display this year and fewer people wearing them. Interesting, as it seemed to this casual observer that wearing poppies – except the ostentatious enamel ones and ones displayed on cars (often from year to year) has continued to decline in recent years.
Perhaps it was the left-wing activists pretending to be journalists pontificating on various T.V channels and somebody usually totally devoid of any original thought banging on in the press how ‘they’ don’t wear a poppy for this or that reason. Or maybe the decline in any sort of ‘service’ undertaken by the great mass of the population or perhaps the spectacle of the political pygmies representing us in Whitehall without a service medal in sight that has caused the decline.
Certainly this year we have been spared the ‘shock horror probe’ stories of this supermarket or that organisation causing ‘outrage’ by ordering staff not to display poppies because to some people they either cause ‘offence’ or because the poppy, according to some, is a political emblem.
The thing is though, in recent years, their howls of outrage don’t seem to have diminished the numbers of people attending commemorative services on Armistice Day (revived in recent years), or Remembrance Sunday – which older readers may recall was only introduced as a permanent date in 1945 after being held on Sunday during the war years.
As it happens, I’ve attended more Remembrance events than most and it has been gratifying over the last few years to see the increase in the number of people and families attending. Numbers though certainly declined during the 1970s. Perhaps, as time went by, many service personnel of the First World War aged and as they reached their middle years, Second World War service personnel just wanted to lay the ghost of the war and forget what, for many, were horrific experiences, and who would or could blame them? But that does not explain why younger generations often did not attend – no experience of service, danger or duty a possible reason perhaps? Or just lack of knowledge, then as now it seems.
Our government is led apparently by Boris Johnson, I say apparently because it seems both his and ministerial diktats are routinely announced courtesy of the media. Where once we would have expected an announcement that has implications for each and every one of us and the security of the nation, (which nation? I hear you say,) is ‘let slip’ by some minion, leaked to the press or released by an unelected ‘expert’ while on breakfast time TV or in the daily media with some fear-inducing headline while the Prime Minister is notable by his absence. Well, not always but certainly when it suits.
This weekend’s national press features the Prime Minister not seeking at first to allay rumours in the press about his next ‘lockdown announcement’ but a happy smiling photograph of himself and partner Carrie extolling the magnificent staff of the hospitals that saved Boris and safely delivered Wilfred. Odd timing, you may well think, but there it is.
Perhaps another example of what more and more people are starting to notice is a complete lack of awareness of what many people away from his ‘bubble’ are thinking and saying and worrying over. It’s not gone unnoticed that there seems to be a complete lack of comprehension as to how decisions in central government have been managed, never mind communicated to the public at large who have been treated to one shambolic u-turn after another complete with incomprehensible guidelines instruction and laws, call them what you will.
For a man with years of experience of politics and journalism, and a highly paid columnist to boot, of late his communication and presentation skills seem to be somewhat lacking, along with any form of management or leadership skill. I wonder who thought that this weekend would be a good idea for happy smiling photographs of baby Wilfred, Boris, Carrie congratulating the NHS again on their wonderful work, an NHS which, having been given billions in the summer and basically an open cheque to what was necessary, is now indicating yet again that it is unlikely to be able to cope with this ‘second more deadly wave’. Thousands of people have not been so lucky and will find in the coming weeks that their treatment, life-saving or not, has been postponed or cancelled.
The private sector, particularly the entertainment and leisure sector, together with retailers, are now reeling from the news that their hard work over the last few months keeping jobs and the economy going is going to be thrown away next week when ‘Lockdown 2’ stops everything – according to the media – in its tracks except the virus, schools, universities and the court system, but who knows, two hours after the stated time for the Prime Minister’s broadcast to the nation, presumably meaning England this time, the world and the media is still waiting, all this apparently because the results of a meeting held on Friday were again leaked by someone; as I’ve said another indication of poor management and leadership skills to which we have all sadly be become accustomed.
It’s easy to manage and lead when the going is easy, but successful leaders in difficult times lead from the front, which is demonstrably not proving to be the case now as the economy suffers and subsequently the livelihoods of thousands if not millions of people are again put at risk, but it is not just the economy and health that is suffering; this time so is national morale.
For some reason not obvious, some ‘erk’ somewhere or other decided that our national day of mourning to commemorate the dead of two world wars and conflicts could, at the behest of a ministerial diktat and eagerly seized on by authorities in London and throughout England could, to all intents and purposes, be cancelled by decreeing restrictions which make it almost impossible for any meaningful services of commemoration to take place.
What we are witnessing here is a total lack of respect for the feelings of families throughout the United Kingdom, and a total disrespect for those who gave their lives, by a class of political nobodies and an establishment which, for the most part, has no service medal between them, have done nothing more dangerous than appear in a television debate, and are so cowardly that they hide away, refusing to face the public, allowing their decisions to be made by rumour, innuendo and leaks to their subservient friends and commentators in the media.
Families that lost relatives in the slaughter of the First World War, suffered not only the effects of industrial scale killing fields when whole streets of families and sometimes towns received the dreaded buff telegram arriving, curtly announcing the death of a loved one and with probable financial hardship for years, but had also endured the effects of ‘Spanish Flu’ which, unlike Covid, killed tens of thousands and attacked the young with a ferocity that we have not seen and hopefully will not see a hundred years later.
Nevertheless, in 1920 when the wounds of war had not healed for many – if they ever did – and the flu raged on, these same people attended the unveiling of the Cenotaph. The procession after the service took over two hours to pass by and a week later there were reports stating that one and a quarter million people had passed by and flower tributes were 10 feet deep.
The ban played on – part 2 will be published here tomorrow.
In these discombobulating times I forgot to actually get a poppy after feeding a note with a struggle into the collection tin on the Aldi checkout. Two masked staff started calling after me (as usual the only non zombie in the busy store) – I always ignore the masked initially thinking they are having a go but they were just reminding me to get a poppy from another till that had some.
Well – we two are going to have a ”meaningful” commemoration of our own at our local village cenotaph. We’re going to sing ”O Valiant Hearts” at the top of our voices (my other half sings better than I do) and I’m going to recite ”For the Fallen” and we’ll lay our poppies in memory of those our family lost – ”with proud thanksgiving”.
We’re prevented from going into our village church, even for private prayer, though the vicar grudgingly agreed he would ”allow access” – no doubt watching like a hawk from the door.
Please Norman, do you really find the enamel poppy ostentatious, i have used them since they appeared as when working( coat on, coat off , in and out of car) the fabric poppy becomes tatty and shapeless quickly, l
I like to wear my poppy with pride and remembrance of members of my own family and my Service family.
Do I dump my practice?
Goodness no fear keep wearing yours with pride, Mrs N has one of those too, I was referring to those those large rosette size ones that you see people wearing.
Thank you Norman. Very true. It’s not so much POOR management and leadership skills. It is NON EXISTENT management and leadership skills!
A passing thought – Did BJ seek to move from National Lockdowns to Local ones, hoping to shift the blame away from himself? If so looks like he will be thwarted. Leader?
I have one good memory from the time I was working in Central London. By fortunate happenstance, I watched the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill pass, from a Government Office, First floor window.
Not many comments here so far so I might as well add another even if not strictly relevant to the article. The media have started yelling the Labour Party might break up. Personally that is of little interest to me, so far as my vote is concerned. But it does look to me that Tories are showing splits too. Lert’s hope at least, the genuine Brexiteers amongst them will seize command. I’m thinking about the sliding of Defence (and Security) into the so called ‘Trade’ Negotiations.
There are also rumblings about the Corvid Madness in the Tory Party. If we are very lucky the ‘sane’ members will prevail there.