ATTEMPTING to explain why some ungrateful morons felt compelled to vandalise war memorials with white paint, an academic compared RAF Bomber Command to terrorists.
Dr Kehinde Andrews, of Birmingham City University, accused crews who bombed Nazi Germany of “war crimes”.
“Britain started this,” Dr Andrews told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“We started the tactics of bombing cities. Why should we be proud of everything that happens in war? This is state terrorism.”
Dr Andrews is living proof of just how shockingly stupid an educated man can be.
Because it is totally wrong to suggest that the British invented the practice of bombing civilian populations in World War Two.
Has this academic airhead ever heard of the Blitz?
From September 7, 1940, London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 nights.
More than one million houses were blown to bits. One of them was next door to the house my mum grew up in.
All the children she regularly played with in that neighbouring house were killed.
They were among the 40,000 civilians who died in the Blitz — half of them in London but also in Portsmouth, Coventry, Hull, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield and Birmingham — where Dr Andrews teaches.
Does this campus-bound fool really know so little about the history of the city where he peddles his warped version of history?
Dr Andrews is typical of a school of left-wing thought that believes the wicked British are always in the wrong, always the bad guys, always pure evil — even when fighting for our lives against Nazi Germany. And nothing divides this country — not even the subject of Brexit — like the way we remember our past.
Millions of us are proud of our country’s history.
But to the likes of Dr Andrews, the British have been nothing but a malign presence on the world stage.
It is exactly this brain-dead bigotry about our nation’s past that enabled Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to grovel adoringly at the boots of the IRA.
It seems mind-boggling to most of us that anyone could feel any sympathy and support for an organisation that murdered and maimed innocent British civilians on British streets. But to a certain kind of lefty loon, the British are always, always in the wrong.
I beg to differ.
This country, I suggest to you, has a history that is as proud as any nation’s on earth.
From Napoleon to Hitler, from the Armada to the Luftwaffe, we have faced down all the great tyrants of Europe.
It was a British politician, William Wilberforce, and his efforts over 20 years, that led to the abolition of slavery in every corner of the British Empire more than 30 years before slavery ended in America (Lord Wilberforce was also instrumental in founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
When the great nations of Europe were under the command of fascist and communist dictators, our country was a free democracy.
That is why we have always been a little different from our European neighbours — the British have never heard the sound of jackboots marching in our streets.
Personally, this nation’s history fills me with nothing but burning pride.
55,573 young men died flying with RAF Bomber Command.
And to some of us, they will always be heroes.
Tidy tips are zen a penny
MARIE Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying and now the star of her own Netflix show, asks a simple question about the junk we keep in our lives.
Those old CDs, forgotten T-shirts, elderly paperbacks – do they “spark joy” in you?
If not, take them down to your local charity shop.
Since reading Marie’s book, every Saturday I haul as much as I can carry to our local Save The Children shop.
I’d quote something brilliant from her book… but I think I chucked it out.
Will the real Rod stand up
TAKE it from one who knows. It is really hard to look like Rod Stewart.
I spent a large chunk of my misspent youth in front of the mirror trying to mimic Rod.
That knowing smile, the rakish twinkle in the eye and – the crowning glory – that glorious barnet, like a bird’s nest in heaven. The closest I ever got was resembling Dave Hill, the buck-toothed guitarist from Slade. Not quite the same thing.
The painful teenage memories came flooding back at the news that Rod’s sister Mary Cady had hired a Rod lookalike to celebrate her 90th birthday.
The singer, always a good sport, was pictured hugging his doppelganger Stan Terry.
But Stan, it must be said, looks more like Shane Warne, inset, than the man who sang Maggie May. I told you it was hard to look like Rod Stewart.
EU Army? Brits will be called to the rescue
DO you recall when talk of a European army was dismissed as fake news put about by us eye-bulging, anti-EU loonies?
Well, this week France and Germany signed the New Treaty of Aachen, which pledges that the armed forces of the two countries will develop closer ties.
Chancellor Angela Merkel boasted that the pact “contributes to the creation of a European army”.
How much clearer can they possibly be? Ever-closer union is what it says on the EU tin. And that includes its own army.
The irony is that any EU army would almost certainly communicate in one common language . . . English.
And if armed conflict ever really kicks off, you can bet your life the EU army will need rescuing by Britain’s Armed Forces.
A 21-year Oscars Odyssey
WHEN the Oscar nominations come in, it is customary to talk about who is up for the big headline awards – Best Picture, Leading Actor, Leading Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor and Best Director.
But there are always two writing awards – Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay – which rarely get even a passing mention.
This is dead wrong.
Every film begins with some writer sitting alone in their room with a vision in his or her head. So please allow me to draw your attention to British writer Deborah Davis, who is nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for The Favourite, her script about the shenanigans in the court of Queen Anne.
Deborah began writing The Favourite 21 years ago – 21 years ago! So it has been a very long, very hard road to Oscar night.
Every film is a collaborative effort. Davis shares her Oscar nomination with writer Tony McNamara, who was brought in to work on her original script, and The Favourite certainly owes a lot of its success to the stunning central performance of Olivia Colman, who is nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.
But without Deborah Davis, The Favourite would not exist.
More than two decades ago, having never written a word for TV or film, Deborah started her screenplay about Queen Anne and her saucy courtiers.
Come Oscar night, we will all be rooting for Richard E Grant, up for a Best Supporting for Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Olivia Colman, who is up against Lady Gaga and Glenn Close.
But Deborah Davis has waited more than 20 years for her big night and we should be cheering for her, too.
It’s a No, Yvette
IF you have ever negotiated anything in your life, from asking for a pay rise to buying a home – or indeed a hamster – you will be aware that “No Deal” is always a possibility. Any kind of negotiation inevitably brings with it the possibility that no deal will be struck.
So all the talk about “taking No Deal off the table” is just Westminster waffle and duplicitous Remainer drivel – a euphemism for blocking Brexit used by gutless politicians too scared to say what they really want.
Next week, Parliament will attempt to wrest control of Brexit from this fragile Government. Yvette Cooper wants our exit delayed for nine months. Oh come on, Yvette, please be honest. Wouldn’t you prefer for ever?
It’s not No Deal they want off the table. It’s Brexit.
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ONE Tory Minister brands pro-Brussels House of Commons Speaker John Bercow “a biased f***wit” who should not be given a peerage.
Perhaps the diddy Remainiac could get his peerage but be known as Lord Biased of F***wit.
Then everyone would be happy.