I have decided that it is increasingly important to keep alert and one’s antennae up and to listen with care to the variety of opinions hot on the airwaves locally, nationally, and internationally before taking sides.
We all have challenges of one kind and another; our local community is rife with problems. The British farming and business community of all sorts from hospitality, industry and educators to our senior citizens are also under siege from this Labour government and beyond. Bosses of the UK’s 5.5 million family-run pubs and shops face an uncertain future as Reeves’s tax raid takes hold.
Workers are being laid off and unemployment is on the rise. In 1967 Harold Wilson announced that “The pound in your pocket will be devalued by 14%”. A decision previously politically unthinkable. Today most of us are fortunate if we have any pounds in our pockets, and that for many who are really struggling, is a genuine problem.
So, we have a Prime Minister who has been applauded for not coming home from the USA with egg on his face. The fact that he came home with very little and failed to take the opportunity to defend Ukraine and President Zelensky who is a legitimate hero but was the following day verbally assaulted and disrespected by Trump and Vance, is I believe not unrelated.
Our countryside and precious resources are under siege despite what we are led to believe by ministers such as the hapless Ed Miliband who with any luck will soon be dismissed and returned to the back benches. Permanently sealing off our oil and natural gas reserves so neither we nor future generations can access them is at best reckless at worst a criminal act. I would say treasonable; the man should be locked up.
Steve Reed Sec of State Environment Food & Rural Affairs last week wrote to farmers following his appearance at the NFU conference where I understand he was received with little enthusiasm and stony silence except for the hecklers and noisy tractors outside the conference hall.
His letter said, “I am writing to provide a summary of the updates I announced, with a package that will support everyone. Farms will become more profitable and sustainable businesses for the benefit of our nation’s food security and the environment.”
He went on to say the government will be working with farmers and growers to increase productivity, animal health and welfare etc, through equipment and technology. He highlighted Higher Level Stewardship (HSL) payments which he said will improve the environment.
Also, capital grant schemes which will re-open in the summer, these have been on hold since 24th November 2024 leaving farmers in the lurch. They allow farmers to apply for funding towards equipment, technology and infrastructure. However, be warned, before you can apply, you must sell your soul and your farm’s future as most of these come with strings attached. They assume they have invested into your business therefore they will now have a share in that business. A bit like Trump with Ukraine.
Call me cynical, but I believe we have reason to be so. All these organisations from National Parks, RPA, DEFRA and the ministers have very little understanding, or maybe it is just part of the agenda towards land nationalisation by the back door. Certainly, little of this will help the farming community long term to support sustainable food production, maintain high standards or protect family farms.
Wherever one looks around the world there is a crisis caused by both civil and interstate war such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Innocent people are dying in their thousands including women and children, many of whom are out of sight and out of mind, particularly in regions of Africa.
Aggression and criminality are on the rise, it is seeping into every corner of the UK’s communities. We appear to have bred or imported a generation of feral, undisciplined, disrespectful individuals who are roaming our street, ransacking homes and businesses totally out of control. The authorities either cannot cope, don’t care or are turning a blind eye. As Richard Littlejohn wrote last week, ‘We used to be a nation of shopkeepers – now we are a nation of shoplifters.
Our education centres including universities once the envy of the world have been infiltrated by left wing liberals hell bent upon indoctrination and control. The intelligent students who do know better and are the majority, do their best to buck the trend. They work hard and plan for a future making the world a better place. However, they are silenced, intimidated and targeted by an aggressive minority whose views on politics, gender, wokeism, BLM and LGBT stuff make a mockery of free speech and fuel aggression.
Finally, what is wrong with the Imperial War Museum? At a time when we have precious few heroes or role models who invoke respect and admiration within our institutions or government, it has turned its back on those who heroically risked their lives. It is essential that young people have somewhere to go to understand just who and why those who were young with their whole lives ahead of them, risked their lives to protect our Monarchy, the British, our heritage and way of life, and our shores to safeguard the freedom we enjoy today.
It is little surprise that the families of Britain’s bravest along with much of the public, are dismayed by the decision to permanently close the gallery displaying our heroes’ Victoria Cross medals.
Last week the IWM announced that the Lord Ashcroft Gallery would close in less than four months. The collection of 230 Victoria Cross and George Cross medals would be removed from public view without even informing Lord Ashcroft. Shame on them.
Michael Ashcroft loaned his personal £70 million collection of medals in 2010 and donated £5 million towards the gallery’s opening. An example of the heroism of those awarded such medals was Warrant Officer Norman Jackson, aged 25, who was awarded his VC by King George VI in 1945 after crawling onto the wing of a blazing Lancaster bomber at 22,000ft to try to put out an engine fire. His VC was auctioned in London in 2004 and purchased by Lord Ashcroft for £200,000. At the time it was the highest auction price ever paid for a VC.
Norman Jackson’s son David Jackson, 71, lives in East Preston, West Sussex and has recently finished writing a book about his father. He said: “I thought the medals would always be on show to the public. What can you put that is more important in their place?”
The stories of the greatest acts of bravery and sacrifice in defence of our nation behind these medals should be compulsory reading and viewing for everyone, particularly young people now facing a world filled with shallow me-too light weights and very few who show true leadership and bravery.
Let us hope the public outcry will be loud enough to penetrate the cloth ears of those who made this ill-thought out ridiculous and insulting decision. These heroes cannot be brushed under the carpet or hidden in dusty storerooms. If they are, God help Great Britain in the future; along with so much else going on soon we shall rightly have to drop the ‘Great’.
We all have challenges of one kind and another; our local community is rife with problems. The British farming and business community of all sorts from hospitality, industry and educators to our senior citizens are also under siege from this Labour government and beyond. Bosses of the UK’s 5.5 million family-run pubs and shops face an uncertain future as Reeves’s tax raid takes hold.
Workers are being laid off and unemployment is on the rise. In 1967 Harold Wilson announced that “The pound in your pocket will be devalued by 14%”. A decision previously politically unthinkable. Today most of us are fortunate if we have any pounds in our pockets, and that for many who are really struggling, is a genuine problem.
So, we have a Prime Minister who has been applauded for not coming home from the USA with egg on his face. The fact that he came home with very little and failed to take the opportunity to defend Ukraine and President Zelensky who is a legitimate hero but was the following day verbally assaulted and disrespected by Trump and Vance, is I believe not unrelated.
Our countryside and precious resources are under siege despite what we are led to believe by ministers such as the hapless Ed Miliband who with any luck will soon be dismissed and returned to the back benches. Permanently sealing off our oil and natural gas reserves so neither we nor future generations can access them is at best reckless at worst a criminal act. I would say treasonable; the man should be locked up.
Steve Reed Sec of State Environment Food & Rural Affairs last week wrote to farmers following his appearance at the NFU conference where I understand he was received with little enthusiasm and stony silence except for the hecklers and noisy tractors outside the conference hall.
His letter said, “I am writing to provide a summary of the updates I announced, with a package that will support everyone. Farms will become more profitable and sustainable businesses for the benefit of our nation’s food security and the environment.”
He went on to say the government will be working with farmers and growers to increase productivity, animal health and welfare etc, through equipment and technology. He highlighted Higher Level Stewardship (HSL) payments which he said will improve the environment.
Also, capital grant schemes which will re-open in the summer, these have been on hold since 24th November 2024 leaving farmers in the lurch. They allow farmers to apply for funding towards equipment, technology and infrastructure. However, be warned, before you can apply, you must sell your soul and your farm’s future as most of these come with strings attached. They assume they have invested into your business therefore they will now have a share in that business. A bit like Trump with Ukraine.
Call me cynical, but I believe we have reason to be so. All these organisations from National Parks, RPA, DEFRA and the ministers have very little understanding, or maybe it is just part of the agenda towards land nationalisation by the back door. Certainly, little of this will help the farming community long term to support sustainable food production, maintain high standards or protect family farms.
Wherever one looks around the world there is a crisis caused by both civil and interstate war such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Innocent people are dying in their thousands including women and children, many of whom are out of sight and out of mind, particularly in regions of Africa.
Aggression and criminality are on the rise, it is seeping into every corner of the UK’s communities. We appear to have bred or imported a generation of feral, undisciplined, disrespectful individuals who are roaming our street, ransacking homes and businesses totally out of control. The authorities either cannot cope, don’t care or are turning a blind eye. As Richard Littlejohn wrote last week, ‘We used to be a nation of shopkeepers – now we are a nation of shoplifters.
Our education centres including universities once the envy of the world have been infiltrated by left wing liberals hell bent upon indoctrination and control. The intelligent students who do know better and are the majority, do their best to buck the trend. They work hard and plan for a future making the world a better place. However, they are silenced, intimidated and targeted by an aggressive minority whose views on politics, gender, wokeism, BLM and LGBT stuff make a mockery of free speech and fuel aggression.
Finally, what is wrong with the Imperial War Museum? At a time when we have precious few heroes or role models who invoke respect and admiration within our institutions or government, it has turned its back on those who heroically risked their lives. It is essential that young people have somewhere to go to understand just who and why those who were young with their whole lives ahead of them, risked their lives to protect our Monarchy, the British, our heritage and way of life, and our shores to safeguard the freedom we enjoy today.
It is little surprise that the families of Britain’s bravest along with much of the public, are dismayed by the decision to permanently close the gallery displaying our heroes’ Victoria Cross medals.
Last week the IWM announced that the Lord Ashcroft Gallery would close in less than four months. The collection of 230 Victoria Cross and George Cross medals would be removed from public view without even informing Lord Ashcroft. Shame on them.
Michael Ashcroft loaned his personal £70 million collection of medals in 2010 and donated £5 million towards the gallery’s opening. An example of the heroism of those awarded such medals was Warrant Officer Norman Jackson, aged 25, who was awarded his VC by King George VI in 1945 after crawling onto the wing of a blazing Lancaster bomber at 22,000ft to try to put out an engine fire. His VC was auctioned in London in 2004 and purchased by Lord Ashcroft for £200,000. At the time it was the highest auction price ever paid for a VC.
Norman Jackson’s son David Jackson, 71, lives in East Preston, West Sussex and has recently finished writing a book about his father. He said: “I thought the medals would always be on show to the public. What can you put that is more important in their place?”
The stories of the greatest acts of bravery and sacrifice in defence of our nation behind these medals should be compulsory reading and viewing for everyone, particularly young people now facing a world filled with shallow me-too light weights and very few who show true leadership and bravery.
Let us hope the public outcry will be loud enough to penetrate the cloth ears of those who made this ill-thought out ridiculous and insulting decision. These heroes cannot be brushed under the carpet or hidden in dusty storerooms. If they are, God help Great Britain in the future; along with so much else going on soon we shall rightly have to drop the ‘Great’.
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