Following 
on from the Art Fund's survey which found that two thirds of respondents felt that too little was being done to recognise the sacrifices being made by Britain's servicemen and women, military chiefs have now added their support to the calls for a national Armed Forces Day. The recent events in Peterborough and the general re-awaking of the public's pride in their Armed Forces (due in large part to coverage given in the Sun and the Mirror newspapers) have also added to the pressure on the Government to introduce this new bank holiday into Britain's calendar. An Armed Forces Day would meet two imperatives.
First it would serve to focus the public's attention on the work, including the humanitarian work, that the Armed Forces are doing on the Nation's behalf. It would act as a driver in schools helping to make the next generations aware of the importance of the Armed Forces in defending our democratic way of life. It would encourage people to think about the reasons our troops are fighting and dying around the world and to challenge government on the legitimacy of this. And it would keep the pressure on government to ensure that the Military Covenant is honoured and that the state is carrying out its part of the deal. This is exactly the sort of proposal that should be coming out of the National Recognition Study.
Secondly, an Armed Forces Day would serve to bolster the feeling of nationhood and civic pride increasingly lacking today. British nationhood, its culture and values have been undermined by two successive generations of political leaders. During the 1980's and 1990's Thatcherites extolled the virtues of new selfishness, promoted me-ism and preached that there is no such thing as society. For the last ten years nuLabour and the Blairites, with their corrosive policies of multi-culturalism and political correctness, have being doing their best to emasculate the British Nation, dilute the traditional values on which our country has been built and (ironically) elevate the importance of the individual above that of the general good.
on from the Art Fund's survey which found that two thirds of respondents felt that too little was being done to recognise the sacrifices being made by Britain's servicemen and women, military chiefs have now added their support to the calls for a national Armed Forces Day. The recent events in Peterborough and the general re-awaking of the public's pride in their Armed Forces (due in large part to coverage given in the Sun and the Mirror newspapers) have also added to the pressure on the Government to introduce this new bank holiday into Britain's calendar. An Armed Forces Day would meet two imperatives.First it would serve to focus the public's attention on the work, including the humanitarian work, that the Armed Forces are doing on the Nation's behalf. It would act as a driver in schools helping to make the next generations aware of the importance of the Armed Forces in defending our democratic way of life. It would encourage people to think about the reasons our troops are fighting and dying around the world and to challenge government on the legitimacy of this. And it would keep the pressure on government to ensure that the Military Covenant is honoured and that the state is carrying out its part of the deal. This is exactly the sort of proposal that should be coming out of the National Recognition Study.
Secondly, an Armed Forces Day would serve to bolster the feeling of nationhood and civic pride increasingly lacking today. British nationhood, its culture and values have been undermined by two successive generations of political leaders. During the 1980's and 1990's Thatcherites extolled the virtues of new selfishness, promoted me-ism and preached that there is no such thing as society. For the last ten years nuLabour and the Blairites, with their corrosive policies of multi-culturalism and political correctness, have being doing their best to emasculate the British Nation, dilute the traditional values on which our country has been built and (ironically) elevate the importance of the individual above that of the general good.
The other "pillars" of state have also either been acquiescent or complicit in these assaults on our value system and feelings of nationhood.
- In its panic to retain membership the Church has been discarding its tenets and beliefs as if they were emptying their drawers of 80's fashions. With its leader even promoting sharia law, the Church has abrogated the responsibility it once had for providing social cohesion, shared morality and historical continuity. Anything goes, nothing has permanency.
- Rather than pursuing its historical role of checking government, the Judiciary has connived in the overall debilitating process. Handing out soft sentences, ever zealous to protect the human rights of criminals and terrorists at the expense of those of their victims and failing to support individuals who try to make a stand, judges and lawyers have enfeebled the legal system and forsaken the respect in which the judiciary was once held.
- Teachers and educationalists, who should be instilling in our young people the concepts of civic responsibility, heritage, tradition and national pride, have been meekly following the dictats of a politically-correct national curriculum which serves to disparge, deprecate and dilute the established British value-system.
- The Media's obsession with the cult of celebrity has raised the self-centred, materialist and hedonistic life-style of a few rich airheads into paragons to which everybody should aspire.
- Politicians seem only to be in politics for what they can get out of it, financially, for themselves. From the many recent accounts of fiddled expenses to the £millions our former leaders receive from lucrative book deals, after-dinner speaking or nominal jobs on the boards of multinational companies, the selfish hypocrisy and duplicity of our leaders are having a corrosive effect on the reputation of politics in this country.
In contrast, through their commitment, discipline, loyalty and courage, the members of our Armed Forces display the virtues generally lacking in Britain today. An Armed Forces Day would not only serve to honour our servicemen and women, it would also help foster national pride and national identity.
Sarah Sands in the Independent writes: "If we abuse those who would lay down their lives for us, we are not a society at all. I prefer to think that we have been thoughtless rather than cruel. We must visibly honour our armed forces and – anathema to Gordon Brown and David Cameron – we must pay for them and their families. Their blood, our treasure, according to the Covenant."
Link> The Mail: Military chiefs & war families call for 'Armed Forces Day'
Link> BBC: Calls grow for Armed Forces Day
Link> Armed Forces International: Political, Military Figures Back Call for Armed Forces Day
Link> The Independent: Sarah Sands: The brave wear a uniform, the coward wears a suit
Link> The Telegraph: Soldiers, sailors and airmen deserve better Link> The Mail: Military chiefs & war families call for 'Armed Forces Day'
Link> BBC: Calls grow for Armed Forces Day
Link> Armed Forces International: Political, Military Figures Back Call for Armed Forces Day
Link> The Independent: Sarah Sands: The brave wear a uniform, the coward wears a suit
Link> The Telegraph: Our servicemen are unappreciated
Link> BBC: MPs' £10,000 kitchens on expenses
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