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French gardeners and smoking Thunderbirds

A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post


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Anyone who has ever visited Normandy will have embedded in their memory the rows and rows of white crosses running as far as the eye can see across the war graves cemeteries.

They are immaculately tended and serve as a better history lesson than anything the national curriculum can come up with. The cemeteries are looked after by British gardeners, who in my experience are more than willing to act as tour guides as well as mowing the grass.

Unfortunately, the government has decided to cut the pay of these gardeners by 25 per cent. As it wasn’t very high in the first place, this will cause real hardship and will lead to many giving up the job and returning home. The cemeteries will then be maintained by French contractors.

Without being unduly disrespectful of the French (not that it’s ever bothered me before) can we really expect them to apply the same dedication to duty as their British counterparts? I think not.

It would be nice to think that Mr Blah might recognise the role these men play in maintaining an important memorial to our war dead and reverse the decision. But the dead can’t vote and, as far as NuLabour is concerned, our history is a hindrance.

It stops us becoming “good” Europeans, it turns us into racists and it impedes Mr Blah’s Cool Britannia project. So it’s goodbye Agincourt and don’t mention the war.

How do I know this? Well that’s what the Runnymede Trust Commission on The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain says. Even Jack Straw ran a mile when this rabble of Guardian-reading, muesli-eating, politically-correct wasters published its report last week.

This document was supposed to form a key part of government policy in NuLabour’s once inevitable second term. Instead it was greeted with such disdain that nobody would admit to having anything to do with it.

And better still, the Commission only cost us £350,000 in National Lottery money. Think of that when they close down your swimming baths because of lack of funding, won’t you?


How spiffing of the Government to spend £60 million of our money on a campaign to persuade girls to keep their virginity. (I once spent £6 on a campaign to persuade Jill Smith to lose hers, but that’s another matter.)

It’s good to see these liberal Lefties taking the high moral ground for once.

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