The Decline of Britain

I wasn't a fan of Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, but I still keep a copy of his book on my shelves.

From time to time, I like to retrieve it and read the poem at the front: The Soldier by Humbert Wolfe.

Down some cold field in a world unspoken

the young men are walking together, slim and tall,

and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken,

there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,

but the air is too thin to carry the thing they say.

They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,

and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,

'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?

Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?

Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'

Down some cold field in a world unchartered

the young seek each other with questioning eyes.

They question each other, the young, the golden-hearted,

of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

I thought of those lines when I watched Alec Penstone, a 100-year-old Second World War Royal Navy veteran, weep over the fact that the war was not worth the sacrifice, given the state of the country today.

And what a state we are in...

We have an economically illiterate Chancellor determined to drive the country into the ground; the number of people receiving jobless benefits without having to look for work has climbed above 4 million; we kowtow to China, allowing that totalitarian regime to feel they can dictate what we can and cannot do; our armed forces are a shadow of their former selves; our police are more interested in non-crime "hate" postings than catching criminals.

The list goes on and on, and now we have the unbelievably arrogant BBC trying to claim "right-wing enemies" brought about their downfall when everybody knows that doctoring a speech to make someone appear to say something he didn't say is plain dishonest journalism.

For many viewers and listeners, it was the final straw in a long list of sex scandals, anti-Semitic abuse, and woke grandstanding. And judging by Tim Davie's pronouncements, supported by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, and numerous media luvvies, they still don't get it.