Peter Reynolds

If you seek a moral compass or example in Britain do not turn to our leaders, nor to those who are the most highly paid, richest or with the greatest responsibilities.  Turn instead to those who have endured the most, who have striven for goals and ambitions with true honour and integrity.  Turn to men like Major Phil Packer, who completed the London Marathon on crutches and has raised nearly £1 million for Help For Heroes.

The disgusting spectacle by the Chelsea whore footballers; spoilt, fawned over and supported by the Russian Mafia.  Their conduct is ignored by the FA, which once pretended to stand for discipline and good behaviour in football but looks the other way when the serious money is involved.

The ignominious disgrace of so many MPs to which, to his eternal shame, the Speaker has profoundly failed to respond.  The calculated fraud, thievery and deception of the banking superclass who have been allowed to walk away with their ill gotten gains.  All these people – not as a group but as individuals – Drogba, Brown, Goodwin – should be named, shamed and punished.  If we let this behaviour pass without sanction then we let down men like Major Packer.  We let down men and women of honour in sport, politics, business and everyday life who try their hardest and invest their integrity in what they do.

Who is left to take the lead?  This huge problem creates a vacancy,  the most important  job in the country but I fear that we do not have a Barack Obama in Britain.  I fear that Rome is burning.

What shambolic, cowardly, civil servant-jobsworth, treacherous nonsense has come out of the Home Office today?

See here for the full story.

The disgusting conduct of Jacqui Smith’s department shames Britain and everyone of us who enjoys freedom won at the cost of Gurkha lives.  While she fritters away her expenses and her downtrodden, frustrated husband amuses himself with porn (who can blame him?), these brave, honourable men who have already won their case in the High Court have been knocked back again after months of unnecessary delay.

Not only is the decision itself a disgrace but the way it has been handled is an example of the very worst of Britain.  What are these fools in government up to?  They really have lost touch with the people and with reality.  Gordon’s YouTube cock-up on expenses – can you think of a more stupid idea? A budget based on fantasy, delusion and deceit.  Crass stupidity is too generous a description.  Gordon, Jacqui, Alistair, you are a laughing stock!  You have demonstrated your incompetence and lack of integrity again and again and again.  Please just go!

Instead of committing genocide, instead of murdering hundreds of innocent women and children, instead of your ridiculous, inane, self-defeating behaviour, instead of condemning your nation to everlasting shame and ignominy, why not try this?

Your much vaunted special forces and Mossad take the responsibility themselves.  No tanks, no F16s, no naval bombardment.  No more cowardice. I am sure that Britain and the US will provide support.  One SAS squadron sacrificing itself  in the name of humanity can achieve infinitely more than you very small, very pathetic, very evil little men can even conceive.  Send in dozens, perhaps hundreds of special forces to take out the rocket launchers and the Hamas leaders.  They probably suffer dozens, perhaps hundreds of casualties but as trained soldiers that is their purpose.  It is not the purpose of women and children to die for your perverse, thuggish political ends.

I truly believe that Israel has now gone beyond redemption.  Nothing can forgive what you have done.  I can deal with you as individuals, many of whom will be against what has been done in your name but as a nation you are now pariahs, outcasts and  monsters.  “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord” and it is coming to you Israel, sooner or later, it is coming.    Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, you will get what you deserve.

Are we no longer allowed to protest in Britain?  What has happened to free speech?  Demonstrations are no longer allowed within the vicinity of Parliament.  Now,  peaceful protestors against the Israeli murderers are stamped on,  snuffed out by fascist police action.

Gordon Brown, you claim to be the leader of our nation but you disgrace yourself and you shame our proud history if you allow this to continue.  Children are dying in their beds in Gaza and you allow the police to stamp out our protest?  Shame on you!  I don’t give two hoots about your pathetic self-aggrandising financial machinations.  What I do care about and what I believe every right-thinking Briton cares about is our right to speak out against this genocide.  You are no longer worthy of any support, not even respect for the office that you have defiled.  We, the British people, do not need  nor deserve  cowardly, disgustingly two-faced, self-serving, political midgets like you.  We deserve much, much better.  Get out now because you are  not up to the job.  You have disgraced yourself and shamed us all.

I have just made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police about the disgusting, repressive and oppressive conduct of the police in connection with the protests outside the Israeli Embassy.  We will not tolerate this sort of behaviour in Britain.  I urge everyone who reads this to telephone the Metropolitan Police on 0300 123 1212 and add your complaint.

Walking The Dog 2

Apart from herons and wealthy, attractive, single women (which seem to be virtually extinct), the main focus of our daily rambles is sticks.

Of course, sticks come in all shapes and sizes but Capone prefers something, shall we say, robust. I suppose the ideal is about four feet long and perhaps three inches thick but the crucial factor in stick style is the way it is carried. It must be held at one end, not in the middle. I think Capone believes this is more flamboyant in the same way the way that a quiff or fringe sweeps back or a fighter pilot’s scarf flies to one side. Of course, even the most perfectly fashioned stick is merely debris on the ground until I have thrown it. Then it becomes the most exciting, the most important thing in life and if it is thrown into the sea he would swim until he sank before giving up the chase.

At the weekend we tackled Thorney Island, all the way around – an eight mile walk in a force eight gale. Out along a one mile dyke, straight as an arrow, then pass through the MOD security gate keeping to the public footpath beyond. The oystercatchers are still here on Thorney although in much smaller numbers but another mile or so on and we put up a roe deer. In the open, not as you usually see them in woods. It ran and Capone ran too but made my heart burst with pride when he responded immediately to the signal, dropped and looked back at me. We watched it run two, three hundred yards inland and continued on our way.

As you approach the most southerly point on Thorney you see to your right the end of Hayling Island and to your left, East Head at the tip of West Wittering. Between is open ocean and a direct line to the Falklands. A couple of months ago when we first made this journey, I spotted an Army Land Rover ahead and we found two men laying the foundations for a bench in memory of a “fallen comrade”. Now, the bench is there. It’s not the usual railway sleeper design. It’s much more elegant and the inscription reads “In memory of Steve Jones, 264 (SAS) Signals Squadron & the crew of ‘Hilton 22’”.

These were our boys, shot down just north of Baghdad three years ago. If I had a son who died a hero in the service of his country, I could think of no more poignant and intense place to remember him amidst the wind, the sea, the sky and the solitude.

Capone and I duly honoured their memory and sat for a cigarette, he accorded the privilege of sitting beside me on the bench for such a special occasion. We remembered them, lachrymose old Welshman that I am.

Thorney turns much warmer and gentler as you move to the east side away from the wind. Nearly seventy years ago, other young heroes took off from here during the Battle of Britain. Now the RAF sailing club provides the local excitement and past Thornham marina and Emsworth harbour back to the mainland.

A pint of beer never tastes better than when you deserve it. So with aching legs and an exhausted dog we made a brief stop at the Bluebell Inn before home for sustenance and sleep.

In the back garden lies a pile of sticks, proudly retrieved, collected and preserved. Out there in the wind and the rain a pile of sticks fashioned into a bench remembers much more than another walk with the dog.

Peter Reynolds 02-04-08