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| Diary: Just perfect. A war graves tour linked to arms manufacturers | Diary: Just perfect. A war graves tour linked to arms manufacturers |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| • They did not forget. Off went four MPs on a sombre “study tour of military cemeteries and battlefields” in Belgium and France over three days in July. The latest register of MPs’ interests records that Labour’s Dai Havard of Merthyr Tydfil, and Conservatives Adam Holloway of Gravesham, Oliver Colville of Plymouth, and Mark Lancaster, Conservative whip and MP for Milton Keynes, toured the first world war graves and battlefields of Flanders Fields. They even (according to the Facebook page of the tour) re-enacted the grim spectacle of a British tommy being “shot at dawn” for cowardice – Harvard playing the poor shot squaddie. So, plenty of time to think about the terrible waste of human life. The “guidance, accommodation and subsistence” cost £815 each, but they didn’t have to pay: the jaunt was arranged and funded by the UK Defence Forum, a group run by the controversial lobbyist Robin Ashby. The forum has been supported, according to its website, by major arms companies such as BAE Systems and Lockheed. So the MPs went to visit war graves on a journey facilitated by a group linked to arms firms that make a buck putting people into war graves. Now that’s symmetry! | |
| • As we strive for dignity in our remembrance events, Germany’s leading first world war historian, Professor Gerd Krumreich, attacks Christopher Clark, professor of modern European history at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and author of bestselling The Sleepwalkers, for being too kind to Germany. “Clark likes Germans too much,” Krumreich tells the French publication L’Express. “He lets them off the hook and tells them their ancestors are less to blame than the Russians, Serbs and French. And the general public loves to rediscover a past which is now no longer to be deemed corrupted.” Remembrance envy? Could be. Clark’s book has sold 300,000 copies in Germany. | • As we strive for dignity in our remembrance events, Germany’s leading first world war historian, Professor Gerd Krumreich, attacks Christopher Clark, professor of modern European history at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and author of bestselling The Sleepwalkers, for being too kind to Germany. “Clark likes Germans too much,” Krumreich tells the French publication L’Express. “He lets them off the hook and tells them their ancestors are less to blame than the Russians, Serbs and French. And the general public loves to rediscover a past which is now no longer to be deemed corrupted.” Remembrance envy? Could be. Clark’s book has sold 300,000 copies in Germany. |
| • With Tory high command brushing up its so called Kill Mill strategy for disparaging the Labour leader, he needs to keep his own supporters happy. And yet he continues to niggle with unsupported schemes and wheezes. “After my rant in June I was encouraged that Hardworking Britain Better Off no longer heads the weekly mails, and the summer campaign theme The Choice: the Labour Future, the Tory Threat hits exactly the right note,” writes a grassroots representative, Ann Black. “Then members drew my attention to the One Nation magazine, which is still liberally sprinkled with the H-word. Ed Miliband’s cost of living contract is only with hardworking Britain, only hardworking people will see their taxes cut, only hardworking families are £1,600 a year worse off, and so on. As one wrote: ‘Please tell them to take out stupid phrases.’ I am trying, believe me.” She’s working hard. But don’t call her hardworking. | • With Tory high command brushing up its so called Kill Mill strategy for disparaging the Labour leader, he needs to keep his own supporters happy. And yet he continues to niggle with unsupported schemes and wheezes. “After my rant in June I was encouraged that Hardworking Britain Better Off no longer heads the weekly mails, and the summer campaign theme The Choice: the Labour Future, the Tory Threat hits exactly the right note,” writes a grassroots representative, Ann Black. “Then members drew my attention to the One Nation magazine, which is still liberally sprinkled with the H-word. Ed Miliband’s cost of living contract is only with hardworking Britain, only hardworking people will see their taxes cut, only hardworking families are £1,600 a year worse off, and so on. As one wrote: ‘Please tell them to take out stupid phrases.’ I am trying, believe me.” She’s working hard. But don’t call her hardworking. |
| • Despite reservations – expressed here on Monday – about the TaxPayers’ Alliance, some of the entries in its latest town hall rich list occasion interest. One notable section reinforces the eternal truth that the London mayor, Boris Johnson, will always look after his people. In 2012-13, advisers came and went, but a select few drifted to earth with the softest landing. Kulveer Ranger, who was the mayor’s transport adviser, left with £45,800. Reprising figures first unveiled by the Evening Standard, the alliance also flags up the payments of £53,200 to the mayor’s former PR man Guto Harri, who now spins for the Murdoch empire at News UK; £53,000 to Johnson’s ex-health adviser Pam Chesters; £25,000 to the outgoing marketing adviser, Dan Ritterband; and more to the unfortunately named Nick Griffin. He was for two years the mayor’s efficiency tsar. He was only paid £10,000 a year, but after two years, he left with £34,000. A pretty efficient use of his time, you may think. | • Despite reservations – expressed here on Monday – about the TaxPayers’ Alliance, some of the entries in its latest town hall rich list occasion interest. One notable section reinforces the eternal truth that the London mayor, Boris Johnson, will always look after his people. In 2012-13, advisers came and went, but a select few drifted to earth with the softest landing. Kulveer Ranger, who was the mayor’s transport adviser, left with £45,800. Reprising figures first unveiled by the Evening Standard, the alliance also flags up the payments of £53,200 to the mayor’s former PR man Guto Harri, who now spins for the Murdoch empire at News UK; £53,000 to Johnson’s ex-health adviser Pam Chesters; £25,000 to the outgoing marketing adviser, Dan Ritterband; and more to the unfortunately named Nick Griffin. He was for two years the mayor’s efficiency tsar. He was only paid £10,000 a year, but after two years, he left with £34,000. A pretty efficient use of his time, you may think. |
| • Finally, it was a political convulsion, and Sayeeda Warsi’s last poignant public act in office before her shock resignation was to extinguish the second of the four large candles lighting the choir at the candlelit first world war remembrance vigil at Westminster Abbey on Monday. Nick Clegg put out the third candle. She jumped from her post. Come the election, Clegg – deeply unpopular in Sheffield Hallam – may well be pushed from his. Will anyone remember him? Twitter: @hugh_muir | • Finally, it was a political convulsion, and Sayeeda Warsi’s last poignant public act in office before her shock resignation was to extinguish the second of the four large candles lighting the choir at the candlelit first world war remembrance vigil at Westminster Abbey on Monday. Nick Clegg put out the third candle. She jumped from her post. Come the election, Clegg – deeply unpopular in Sheffield Hallam – may well be pushed from his. Will anyone remember him? Twitter: @hugh_muir |
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