Sir Roger Gale
Member of Parliament for Herne Bay and Sandwich (including West Thanet)
 

February. Twenty- eight days that have just seemed like half a political lifetime. The fragmentation of party politics or a re-run of the ‘ Gang of Four’? The death by a thousand cuts  of the UK auto- industry or the start of an electric powered renaissance? The last stand for Daesh or the morphing of terrorism into a still more dangerous international guerilla movement? The end  of the beginning of our orderly withdrawal from the European Union or the beginning of the end of EU trade and co- operation? The downfall of a socialist dictatorship in Venezuela or another abortive US- backed coup? Confrontation over the nuclear futures of the Russian Federation and North Korea. An American President drawn ever- closer to impeachment. Wealthy rats preparing to desert a ship of state that is perceived as leaking heavily below the waterline. And as is usual at this time of year ten centimetres of snow brings Great Britain to a standstill. Take comfort from the fact that even amidst this turbulence some things remain ever  constant.

 

The media has for months been trailing the liklihood of the formation of a ‘centrist’political party. Those of a certain age  will recall the ‘ Limehouse plot’ and the formation of the ‘ Gang of Four’ under Dr. David Owen, a former Labour Foreign Secretary, Shirley Williams, a Cabinet Minister under Wilson and Callaghan, Former Labour Chancellor and Home Secretary Roy Jenkins and  the then sitting Labour MP Bill (Lord) Rodgers . Indeed, I was myself opposed in the 1983 General Election by,  in addition to Labour’s Cherie  Booth ( who subsequently found fame and fortune as Mrs. Tony Blair) , one Bill Macmillan, an SDP candidate who garnered sufficient votes to save his deposit.  With a seeming inevitability, however, The  Social Democratic Party, as it was properly  known, faltered and merged with the equally failing  Liberal Party to become the Liberal Democrat’s.  End of brave experiment in ‘ new politics’.

 

Fast forward to 2017. Had the Conservative Party not squandered the opportunity to secure a landslide victory it is, I think, inevitable that the Momentum- driven Labour Party would have fractured and there would have been an immediate and powerful re- alignment of British politics.  The Tories’ loss of that election - for that is what it was - and the relative success of ‘ Red Jerry’ Corbyn headed off the schism as many moderate socialist colleagues struggled to maintain their centre ground in the teeth of the  Marxist radicalisation of their party . Now, faced with an epidemic of ‘institutional anti- Semitism’, bullying and harassment and the unpalatable side- effects and inconsistencies of Brexit , together with actual or threatened de- selection, the rift has finally commenced. Led, effectively, by Chuka Umunna the ‘ magnificent seven’ , as they were inevitably dubbed, have formed ‘ The Independent Group’. The original ‘ Tiggers’, Umunna, together with Luciana Berger, Angela Smith ( the courageous Leader of the British Labour Group on the Council of Europe) , Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey, were joined a day later bythe North London MP Joan Ryan.  Comrade Corbyn`s Momentum response to Labours largest schism for forty years  was to describe the renegades as “Blairite Tory Parasites working for Israel” and, in the words of their anthem, “ Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer we`ll keep the red flag flying here”.

 

Next the ‘ After Eights’ attracted  three defectors, The former Cameron administration Health and Defence Minister Anna Soubry, Dr Sarah Wollaston  from Totnes in Devon ( the product of an ‘ open primary’ selection process) and  the serial rebel ‘Heidi - Hi’ Allen of South Cambridgeshire from the Tory Party. The self- styled ‘ Three Amigos’ scorned what they have dubbed the ‘ Bluekip’party under whose banner they were elected but  notably  the staunch campaigning Labour veteran Frank Field, who resigned the Labour whip months ago, chose with some others not to join the ‘ Tiggers’ .

 

There is certainly massive disaffection within all of the major and established political parties. Even the Liberals have lost one Member, Stephen Lloyd, on the back of the Brexit division. It is hard, though, to see how an  Independent Group, which is not a named political party, has no clear and unifying policies and a ‘ spokesman’ but no Leader, can survive any electoral challenge post- Brexit. The group has faced the inevitable ‘have the courage to resign and fight by- elections’ challenge and it is perhaps unfortunate that Dr. Wollaston once sponsored a bill to force ‘ switchers’ to fight a by-election.Ms Allen’s “ I want to kill off my party” line will not have endeared her to the many in her constituency who voted for her as a Conservative but the new Group is at present riding above the Liberal Democrat’s and only a little behind Labour in the polls.  This showing though, almost certainly reflects  general public dissatisfaction with the whole Brexit process and with politics as revealed in the referendum itself rather than a force that is likely to translate into votes in a ballot box.

A group, or even a new party with a new name, would require cohesion. Some of Labour’s defectors have been justifiably motivated by their Leadership’s failure to  address the appalling anti- semitism to which they have been individually subjected. Others have been driven by Corbyn’s attitude, which following their departure has now shifted, towards a second Brexit referendum and the Tory members have not only different priorities, save for a United ‘Remain’ View of Brexit,and in at least in the case of Anna Soubry a totally different view of social and fiscal policy ( she was a firm supporter of austerity)  from their new socialist colleagues. These divisions do not bode well for the creation of a fighting force founded on `new politics’. Take comfort, though. Mr Farridge has launched yet another new political group, “The Brexit” party, recognised by the Electoral Commission and which claims to have attracted fifteen thousand members in the first twenty-four hours.. Mostly, one suspects , disaffected former `Kippers` who have found the strong meat of UKIP`s  National Socialist sense of direction under its latest in a long line of Fuhrers too strong for even their unsophisticated palates.

 

Another month, another twenty-eight fun-packed days towards March 29th and Brexit. Oddbins, the wine stores founded in 1964, is in administration joining Patisserie Valerie and the music stores HMV. This probably has more to do with the demise of the traditional High Street and a shift in consumer shopping towards out-of-town malls and on-line purchases but Brexit, inevitably, takes much of the blame.  Following in the wake of job losses at Jaguar Landrover , Nissan has announced that it will be transferring planned production of its new X-trail SUV to Japan and Honda will be closing its Swindon plant with a loss of some ten thousand jobs to the town directly and in related and dependent industries. Honda`s reputation was not enhanced by the fact that many employees learned of their imminent unemployment not from the company but in television news reports.  Again, the pains of the UK motor industry are probably due in large part to the contraction in the Chinese market and falling demand for diesel vehicles but it is a racing certainty that the threat to the supply of `just in time` car components purchased from mainland Europe and the likely reduction in European sales will have impacted heavily on boardroom decisions taken back in Tokyo.

 

Uncertainty is bad for business and investment. Trade figures reveal that in the last quarter of 2018 growth was halved to 0.3% from 0.6% in the third quarter and that overall the year delivered the worst growth, at 1.4%, since Britain was still emerging from the 2008 crash in 2012. The British Chamber of Commerce says that its members are`being hung out to dry.’

 

It is not, though, all bad news. The Governor of the Bank of England, not known for his Brexiteer leanings, is now looking forward to `a new era of democracy and free trade` and that most effective of Secretaries of State, Dr. Liam Fox, whose International  Trade Department has been quietly beavering away to deliver for UK limited, has just announced, as a `Brexit victory` , the signing of a significant  post-EU Trade deal with Switzerland.. One swallow does not a summer make but those of us who have attended Dr Fox`s early-morning breakfast briefings are aware that much has been achieved and is still being achieved in laying what he has described as “a solid foundation for post-Brexit trading relationships”. Pens are poised over the paper upon which other deals are printed awaiting only for the starting gun to be fired. If the House of Commons can just agree to back the Prime Minister`s Withdrawal Agreement then we are ready, willing and able to throw open the doors for new business.

 

“If the House of Commons can just agree………….”  The problem, of course, is that there is at present no deal, no agreement, that will command a majority in the Commons and, God knows, the lady has tried to deliver one. Notwithstanding “The Brady Amendment” which was a neatly orchestrated way of cajoling most of the Conservative Party and the DUP into the Government lobby at the same time,  in itself no mean feat these days, and the “Malthouse Compromise” dreamed up by the Housing Minister and former City Hall chum of Mayor Boris Kit Malthouse as an elegant way of kicking the can still further down the mellow brick road towards the everlasting bonfire of Commission vanities, The Darling Bud has suffered further bruising parliamentary defeats. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” is a term that might have been coined just for this Prime Minister.  She has won another couple of weeks in which to negotiate but with the European President Donald Tusk suggesting that there will be “a special place in hell” for those who orchestrated Brexit without a plan to leave the Prime Minister faced what was described as a `bruising encounter` when she next visited  `senior officials`  Brussels.

 

At home and having declined to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss a way forward in the interests of our country, what passes for leadership in today`s official opposition, in the form of Mr. Corbyn, wrote to Mrs. May with a list of five `legally binding` demands to be put before the Commission.  These included  a `permanent and comprehensive customs union`, `close alignment with the single market` to include shared institutions, a `dynamic alignment on rights and protections`for UK and EU workers1` rights, a `clear commitment to UK participation in EU agencies and funding programmes` and `unambiguous agreements on further security agreements`. In other words, membership of the European Union with all of the obligations, none of the trade and other advantages of leaving and the payment of continuing contributions with no voice at the table. Which is not exactly what the people of these islands thought they were going to get when they voted to leave the European Union!  Not entirely surprisingly the PM`s response was, while characteristically rather more courteous than the two words that some might have used, less than welcoming.

 

“The Sun”, that tabloid that millions of people have read to them daily, claims that “Ten thousand jobs will be at risk in Germany” and the Dutch flower industry, whose main customer is Britain is likely to collapse under a No Deal departure. The prospect of Armageddon is not a little scary The tabloid`s message to Europe is less than subtle. “Be afraid. Be very afraid”. .  Number Ten`s Chief Negotiator and the Bete Noir of the ERG, Olly Robbins, is overheard by ITV`s Angus Walker in a Brussels watering hole proclaiming that  “In March there will be two options: the Withdrawal Agreement“or“a significant delay” in contradiction of his Prime Minister`s own `We leave on March 29th` position.  

 

That said, it is clear that preparations for a No Deal that most, other than hard-core Brexiteers, do not want, are far from complete , not least because Government departments and local government and businesses don`t want to waste time, resources and money planning for something that none of them want or, deep down, really believe is going to happen. Kent Members of Parliament, faced with the prospect of thousands of articulated lorries clogging up our roads queuing for customs checks at Dover and the Channel Tunnel, have a particular interest in these matters. The Department of Transport, in collusion with a West Kent centric County Council, have been blundering ahead ( albeit slowly) to turn  part of the M26 that links the M20 to the M25 into a lorry park while at the same time planning to use Manston Airport in my constituency, which we are striving to get reopened to carry the post- Brexit freight that the UK will rely upon, into a repository for up to seven thousand lorries. This project,  known as Operation Brock, overlooks the fact that Manston is many miles and some fifteen roundabouts along a road that is in parts single carriageway from Dover and still less suited to take traffic bound for the Tunnel. We are not overly reassured to be told that a man in a yellow jacket, or ‘ gilets Jaunes’ as we have come to know them, will be on standby to separate the traffic flows if needed.  No matter, million’s of taxpayers’  pounds have been spent setting up a scheme that will almost certainly not work while the advice that technology should be deployed to prevent lorries , miles back from the ports, from entering the queue, seems to have been ignored. You couldn’t make it up, could you? Well, yes, you could as a matter of fact. While the Roads Minister, Jesse Norman, is doing his best to grapple with conflicting interests others in his department have been busy allocating boodle to a ferry company that has no ships. That the port of Ramsgate is, effectively , closed and needs millions of pounds worth of dredging to restore it to operational use is not necessarily an impediment to providing a service designed to deliver vital pharmaceuticals for the health service . Indeed, contracts have been awarded to two other companies to do exactly that and quite right too. There were, however, a few red faces when it was confirmed that there was little or no prospect of Seaborne, the company seeking operate from Ramsgate, securing the necessary RoRo vessels to provide the service. To be fair, no taxpayer’s money was parted with before the moffered contract was withdrawn but it has not enhanced the reputation of the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, a decent man in whom the Prime Minister “ has full confidence”.

 

Exhortations from the Prime Minister to “ move beyond what divides us and back the Withdrawal Agreement “ fell on deaf ears so far as Steve Baker, mover and shaker behind the provisional wing of the ERG is concerned. Baker  has dismissed the negotiations as “ a complete waste of time” . That has not, however, prevented Mrs. May from embarking upon a frenetic round of ‘ telephone diplomacy’ with the leaders of twenty out of twenty seven of the EU remaining states or, more significantly from sending her secret weapon, the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC, along with the Dexteu Secretary, Steve Barclay, into battle for Great Britain . Lord Cox, as he will indubitably become in the fullness of time, is regarded in legal circles as a serious heavyweight who is capable of combining a booming voice and courtroom histrionics with a brain that is as sharp as the proverbial cut throat razor. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he could aspire to and achieve still higher office.

 

In her statement to the Commons the Prime Minister announced that she would return on or before March 12 th with a final Withdrawal Agreement reflecting the results of the Attorney General’s endeavours. If that is defeated she will then put to the House a motion that will allow Parliament to rule out leaving without a deal and if that in turn is voted down then she will offer a vote to delay our departure until June. And if that fails also then we might just have a problem and, possibly, a General Election. Whatever the outcome the fact that the House then immediately voted , by 502 to 20 to lock in a Commons veto over No Deal will not have been lost upon those  with who we are trying to negotiate and who will, of course, have taken note of  and comfort from the attempts to undermine our efforts to reach a deal in the interests of No Dealin the case of the ERG and of No Brexit on the part of much of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat’s, the SNP and the Tiggers. That will not make the task of Geoffrey Cox and Steve Barclay any easier.

 

The Jihadi Bride’ who left Britain at the age of fifteen to join Isis is now resident in a detention camp and, about to give birth to another child having already lost two to sickness and privation, wants to come back to the UK to rejoin her family. Now nineteen, Shamira Begum has shown, in TV interviews, no remorse for her connivance at the most brutal of killings, seems to treat as commonplace the  sight of severed heads in buckets and gives every impression of regretting not in the least her experiences and actions. Not surprising, therefore, that this young lady, notwithstanding her very advanced pregnancy by a Dutch husband who also left home to join the terrorists, should have attracted  little sympathy for her plight. Gavin Williamson, our Defence Secretary, has in the past opined that far from being allowed back into the UK terrorists should be shot because  ‘ dead terrorists can do no harm’ . A populist sentiment that carries with it an impeccable logic and one that perhaps prompts an equally tabloid response from Home Secretary Sajid Javid who strips Ms.Begum of her British Citizenship.

 

It is not, of course, legal to leave a person stateless but Ms. Begum has Bangladeshi parents and therefore is deemed to have dual nationality. That the government of Bangladesh determines that she is not a citizen and will not be granted entry into a ‘ home country’ of which she knows nothing and has never visited poses some difficulties for ‘ The Saj’ who is widely perceived to have taken a Leadership- bid enhancing decision rather than cluttering up the situation with tiresome legal considerations.

 

Having given birth to her child while still incarcerated Ms “ I don’t regret going to Syria” Begum opines that “ people should have sympathy for everything I’ve been through”. There is little doubt that the young woman has been brainwashed and traumatised or that she has faced some grim personal experiences but she is, if we are to err on the side of public safety, a potentially very dangerous person. The question remains , therefore, as to whether or not she should be allowed to roam the world in the company  of the Isis diaspora, free and able to commit atrocities , or whether she should be brought to Britain with her British infant son, put on trial, convicted and sentenced to a very  long period in prison while the baby is taken into care. I opt for the latter course of action but there are, it seems, many others in a similar position and the precedent of return, once set, may be hard to resist in very many other cases. I am glad that it is not a judgement of Solomon that I am required to exercise.

 

The Commander in Chief of the American armed forces  is in hawkish mood. Fresh from his triumphant tearing up of The Nuclear Arms Treaty signed between President Reagan and the Soviet Union in 1987 and the consequent rekindling of a nuclear arms race that sane people had believed had been consigned to the dustbin of history,The Tramp  initially proposes to rub salt into another running sore by sending scores of captured Jihadis to Guantanamo Bay.  He claims that the war in Syria is won and that the ‘ Caliphate’ is at an end. Alex Younger, the Head of MI6 and a gentleman with a rather better grasp of geography and life on this planet rather than the parallel universe inhabited by the man in the White House, suggests more realistically that the Caliphate is not a piece of territory and that Isis will simply morph  and spread throughput  the world. A beleaguered Tramp, with enough problems on home soil to last for the whole of a misguided second Presidency, threatens to release ‘ hundeds’ of captive Isis fighters unless the eight hundred prisoners from other countries  that the US now holds in Syria are allowed to return to their native lands. If the ‘ take back your Jihadis or they’ll be set free’ message is intended to intimidate it fails and clearly makes an adverse impression upon a House of Representatives that is wearying of childish tantrums and equally fearful of the prospect of a horde of terrorists on the rampage. Unlike the current President, whose grasp of geopolitics is minimal and whose self- proclaimed powers as a deal maker appear to be, if indeed they ever existed, on the wane, there are others who wish us ill and who understand only too well what makes the world tick and , if required , to go bang.

 

The Tramp’s State of The Union address is embarrassingly put on ice while The House declines to accept a budget that includes provision for the President’s electoral vanity project, the Great Mexican Wall. Faced with a country in danger of coming to a grinding halt the Tramp is forced to recognise that in The Leader of The House, Nancy Pelosi, who understands that the best way to treat a bully is to bully him . So America finds itself with a President who for the first time in the history of the Federation  tries to declare a State of National Emergency for the sole  purpose of allowing himself to rob other budgets of vital funds to build his wall. Since 1976 there have been fifty- eight emergencies but not one of them has been over spending decisions..

 

When in trouble, go abroad and strut the world stage. As his former lawyer, facing a three year prison sentence, sings like a canary before committees and the storm clouds of potential impeachment gather the Commander in Chief and serial draft avoider finally makes it to Vietnam . What is supposed to be a cordial meeting with the Young Un in Hanoi, culminating in the formal end to the Vietnam War and the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear construction and test facilities , collapses  big time. A planned triumphal press conference unravels and is cancelled at the last minute and a celebratory luncheon is left to go cold as the Guests of Honour fail to appear. The Tramp is seen as no match for Little Rocket Man . Mr.  President, by the way, is reported to be considering gracing the United Kingdom with his presence around the time of the 70th anniversary summit of NATO in December.

 

In other news the BBC’s proposal, now that it has taken on the responsibility to collect fees, to remove the free licence concession from 4.5 million over- 75s is described by the Clunking Fist (Gordon Brown, do you remember him?) as ‘ a betrayal of the elderly’ and the breaking of a pledge.

Now I am wholly in favour of giving benefits to those that need them and I accept absolutely that for people of a certain age watching the banalities of television is one of the few remaining pleasures in life. But do I really need and should I or John Humphries qualify for a free TV licence? Or, for that matter, for a winter fuel payment.  There are too many pensioners who are living in actual or genteel hardship of course but there are also thousands  out of that 4.5 million who are very well off, in receipt of sizeable private pensions, own large houses or , like myself, are still working. If we are to give taxpayer’s money away then let’s at least target  it to where it is  really needed. I know that ‘means testing’ is frowned upon but at the end of the day all of those who pay taxes are tested in one way or another so why not at the very least limit this and all public largesse to those who do not pay the higher rate of tax. And while we are about it should not those who are still working, whatever their age, continue to pay National Insurance contributions?  Humphries, by the way, is due to retire after thirty- two years fronting the BBC Radio Four Today programme.

 

Balls watch

 

Conservative Party Leadership wannabe  David Davis has found himself at the centre of a storm in a D- cup. In a ‘ how not to make friends and influence people’ moment the Old Knuckleduster walked up to the statuesque and formidable Minister Claire Perry and, mistaking her for the Immigration Minister, said “ Hello Caroline”. La Perry responded by saying that “ Caroline Nokes is a C- cup “ adding, in a chilling reference to a former DD campaign stunt that mis-fired , “I am the Double-D”. 

 

Having earned approbium  for seeking to block what became known as “ the upskirting bill” the Honourable Member for Christchurch, Christopher Chope, caused a social media storm by then opposing a private member’s bill designed to outlaw further the practice of Female Genital Mutilation. His defence that he opposed all private bills on the grounds that legislation should be fully and properly debated might have stood up to scrutiny  rather better had  he resisted some of the wilder legislative fantasies of those of his chums on the hard Brexit wing of the Conservative Party. In the event it was left to the government to give time to ensure that both measures reached the statute book. I look forward to the same government granting time for the ‘ Lifetime Voting Bill’ for overseas voters should that private member’s measure also bite the dust.

 

Mayor Boris, that celebrated philanthropist, wants to cut the aid budget and  to shut down the Department for Overseas Development and hand it’s responsibilities to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in which he, of course, excelled. Mrs Zahari Ratcliffe, the subject of his attempts at diplomacy, still languishes in an Iranian prison .

 

The Tesco supermarket chain, says Health Secretary Matt Hancock, knows more about its customers than the NHS knows about its patients. Buy one, get one free,  operations anyone?

 

Comrade McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, has described Sir Winston Churchill as  a ‘ villain’ in reference to the deployment of troops in Tonypandy in 1910. Sir Winston’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames  MP, a former Defence Minister, in turn describes Comrade McD as ‘ a Poundland Lenin’.

 

BBC reporters like the veteran war reporter Jeremy Bowen are up in arms over a proposal to cut short News at Ten ‘ to attract younger viewers’. Charlotte Moore, responsible for the genesis of this brainwave and the Corporation’s ‘ Director of Content’ presumably believes that thirty minutes is too great a demand upon a youthful attention span.

 

Schoolchildren have engaged in a ‘ climate change strike’ modelled on the ‘ inspiration’  of Sweden’s Greta Thunberg. Truancy is good for the planet.

 

While Brothers and Sisters were quitting the Labour Party to form The Independent Group. Derek Hatton, the Merseyside Militant kicked out of the party by Neil Kinnock, was re-admitted to Red Jerry’s Momentum band. Briefly. An unfortunate anti- Semitic article led to his re- expulsion after a matter of hours.

 

Fiona Onasanya, the Member of Parliament convicted and sent to prison for seeking to pervert the course of justice, has been released after serving twenty-eight days of a three- month sentence. She is therefore now free to vote against the Withdrawal Agreement. Wearing an electronic tag, one assumes.

 

Twenty five year old Matthew Furlong, who has a degree in physics and whose father is a Detective Inspector, has been rejected by Cheshire Police Force because he is a ‘ white, heterosexual male without disability’ . This is described as ‘ positive action’ by a force that wishes to recruit more disabled, gay and black constables. Others might call it ‘ discrimination ‘.

 

The French National Fencing Association, guardians of the finer arts of swordfighting with the foil, sabre ans epee, has official recognised a new addition to these noble sports. It is - wait for it - duelling with the Jedi light sabre!

 

And in keeping with an occasional history of eccentric Olympic sports that has included, in 1900, horse long  jumping and live pigeon shooting, it is suggested that break-dancing, as an ‘ urban dance form’, be considered for the 2024 games to be held in Paris.

 

The Synod of the Church of England has determined that it will no longer be necessary for churches to open on the Sabbath. In the light of a drop of 15% in ten years in attendance at Sunday services and with an average, in 2017 , of just one in ten babies baptised, one wedding and five funerals the Synod’s decision is an honest appraisal of changing customs and practices.

 

In a candid interview for Desert Island Discs the first openly gay Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, has fessed up to a major professional weakness: an inability to detect the smell of cannabis.

 

In its 2019 collection the House of Gucci is marketing trainers featuring ‘ designer stains and scuff marks ‘ and a ‘ vintage distressed effect’ in ‘ off- white leather’. At £615 for a pair of what sounds and looks like second- hand  shoes many  people would be pretty distressed themselves.

 

The RAF has had to call upon the Martin Baker company, purveyor of fine ejector seats to daring young men in their flying machines, to upgrade the equipment in F35 fighters to accommodate  the fuller figures of today’s pilots .

 

The Cheese businesses represented by Dairy UK have objected to the wares peddled by La Fauxmagerie, a vegan cheese shop in London’s fashionable Brixton that sells ‘ Cheddar’, ‘ Camembert’ , ‘Mozzarella ‘ and ‘ Halloumi’ . To certain tastes Cheddar and Dorset Blue Vinny are cheeses. All else is mere confectionary.

 

The armchair warriors from ‘ elf ‘n safety are threatening the futures of the  dwindling fleet of Little Ships of Dunkirk. In their glory days these brave vessels and their courageous helmsmen and engineers pulled some three hundred and thirty six thousand French and British troops to safety from the beaches of La Manche during Operation Dynamo. Twelve of the ships, including Princess Freda built in 1926 , the Princess Marina and the Dawn Belle that saw active service not only at Dunkirk but on D- Day also, together with The Connaught ( 1911) that led the regatta during the Queen’s Jubilee Pageant on the Thames, are all at risk . These little ships no longer comply with what the Maritime and Coastguard Agency describes as ‘ modern technical requirements’ .

‘ Proportionate  measures to increase safety for the travelling public’ for boats now used with pride as pleasure craft may result in what their owners have described as financial suicide. Whitehall may yet bring about  what Hitler failed to achieve.

 

Valete

 

Clive Swift( 82) will be remembered as Richard Bucket in the ‘ Keeping Up Appearances’ TV series but the co- Founder of The Actors Centre was also  a .distinguished member of the Royal Shakespeare Company before appearing in the BBC’s Barchester  Chronicles and ITV’s Midsomer Murders.

 

Jeremy Hardy (57) won the Perrier Award for ‘ Blackadder Goes Forth’ in 1988.  The Corbynista used his wit as a stand-up quickfire comedian in QI, The News Quiz and ‘ I’m sorry I haven’t a Clue’.

 

Pablo Noel ( 92) was the last of the star wild animal trainers from the days when it was considered in order for big beasts to ‘ perform’ in public. He worked with Circus Alexis Gruss in Paris, with Barnum and Bailey and with Ringling Brothers.

 

The romantic novelist Rosalind Pilcher ( 94) , author  of books selling 60 million copies, served her apprenticeship with Mills and Boon  before joining Hodder and Stoughton. The World War Two ‘ Wren’ received the OBE in 2002 and fans will remember her fondly for ‘ The Shell Seekers’ ( 1987). Sex, for Rosalind Pilcher, ‘ stopped at the bedroom door’.

 

Albert Finney  (82) was schooled in the ‘kitchen sink dramas’ of the ‘50s and 60s. The angry young man nevertheless appeared in Coriolanus with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford upon Avon in 1959 before receiving acclaim in Alan Sillitoe’s “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” in 1960. On the big screen he played  alongside Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer, in Tom Jones  in 1963, in Charlie Bubbles with Lisa Minnelli in 1968, as Hercule  Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express in 1974’ in The Dresser in 1984, and latterly in the Bond movie Skyfall in 2012. The man with the love of cricket and horse racing and who played Churchill in TVs The Gathering Storm might have been one of the all- time greats had he not, as one of his friends said with great affection ‘ preferred lunching to acting’.

 

John Haynes ( 80) generated the sales of two hundred million car manuals worldwide embracing three hundred models of automobile and one hundred and thirty motorcycles.Haynes also produced manuals for Apollo 11,The Typhoon fighter aircraft and the Starship Enterprise. His 1966 Austin Healey Sprite manual  alone sold three thousand copies in its first three month and the ‘ amateur ‘ author who received the OBE in 1995 accumulated thirty cars in his own private collection.

 

Gordon Banks (81) , known as ‘ Banks of England ‘ following his performance  in the 1966 World Cup, was paid, as the World’s best goalkeeper, £100 per week. He received his OBE in 1970.

 

Kevin Ruane (86) was the BBC’s correspondent in Moscow and Warsaw throughout much of the Cold War. He took up his post in Moscow on St. Valentine’s Day in 1976, covered the trial of the ‘ dissident’ Yuri Orlov , founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group and then moved, in 1981, to Warsaw to report on the suppression of the Solidarity Movement.

 

Baroness Falkender ( 86) was, as Marcia Williams, Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Private Secretary throughout the ‘60s and 70s. She was made a life Peer in 1974.  It is said that when Wilson resigned in 1976 she was responsible for the’ Lavender list’ of resignation honours.  Wilson’s Press Secretary, Joe Haines  described her influence as ‘ all pervasive’.

 

Lee Radziwill, (85) the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, married a Polish Prince and as’ Princess Radziwill’ established a reputation as what Truman Capote described as ‘ an American Geisha’.

 

Paul Flynn, (84) was an assiduous member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. After a long and painful illness Paul has become the twenty fourth Labour Member of Parliament to die in Office since 2000.

 

Karl Lagerfeld ( 85) was Chanel’s Creative Director for thirty- six years. The eccentric German- born designer has been described as ‘ brilliant’ and ‘ funny’ but had an acid tonge that described Princess Diana as ‘ sweet but stupid’ and of Pippa Middleton said that ‘ she should only show her back’’ ‘Kaiser Karl’ dubbed Yves St. Laurent as ‘ provincial’ and the wearing of sweatpants as ‘ a sign of defeat ‘. His alleged £100 million fortune is expected to be left largely to Choupette, his Burmese cat who, in addition to nine lives, enjoys the services of two full - time maids.

 

George Mendoza ( 95) was the sailor who appeared in the iconic Times Square photograph taken by Alfred Elsenstaedt when Mendoza grabbed a complete stranger and kissed her following the announcement of the ending of the Second World War.

 

Peter Tork (77) was one of the ‘ Prefab Four’ that made up the first manufactured ‘ boy band’ , The Monkees, that sold 37 million albums in the 1960s.

 

John Carlisle (76) was the Member of Parliament for Luton from 1979 to 1997. A fierce opponent of anti- apartheid sanctions over sport , he was known in the House as ‘ The Member for Johannesburg’.

 

And finally........

 

The RAF’s Tornado is saying farewell to combat after 45 years and 29 operations. Airborne in 1974 and commissioned in 1979 to deter a perceived Soviet threat the plane that carried eight 1k bombs saw service in the first Gulf war in 1993, in Korea in the late 90s, in the second Gulf war in 2003, in Afghanistan in 2009,in Libya in 2011, in Nigeria against Boko  Haram in 2014 and in Northern Iraq and Syria in 2014. The final operational aircraft have flown back from their base at Akrotiri in Cyprus to land at RAF Marham . “ A job well done”. 

 

Some years back I paid a fleeting visit in the depths of the Southern winter to Port Stanley in The Falklands Islands. Standing at the top of Poon hill we watched as the RAF’s first woman Tornado pilot completed her 2000th sortie. Air Marshall Sue Gray is now the RAFs first three- star officer.

 

And on the twenty- second of February 1944 a B17 Flying Fortress crashed near Sheffield’s Endcliff Park with the loss of the entire crew. Watching that fatality was a small boy called Tony Foulds who, now eighty- two has orchestrated an anniversary flypast to commemorate the bravery of men who, he is certain, sacrificed their own lives by altering course to avoid killing him and his playing friends in what might otherwise have been a survivable landing.

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