Yesterday, I learnt from watching the news, was our first ever Armed Forces Day. According to the official website "The first Armed Forces Day is 27 June 2009, and is an opportunity for the nation to show our support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community"
The tradition in the United Kingdom has always been that we do not celebrate the military or have parades of armed men in our town centres if we can help it - unless we are in Northern Ireland. We conquered, or not, when duty called, and commemorated the actions and their dead.The Colour was trooped annually with pomp and well drilled display to demonstrate the special relationship between the Crown and our armed might - a relationship being assiduously cultivated with William and Harry. We also, of course, have Rememberance Sunday. Without undue modesty, therefore, we were 'quiety proud' and all the more deeply military in our attitude because of this. Not for us, up until this weekend, the boastful mobilisations of state force down 200 high streets (and the risk of protest that might politicise them and break the spell of monarchy - and Republican protest there was in Strathclyde, described by Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy aa a "sickening spectacle".)
But at the request of Gordon Brown, the one-time Tory MP Quentin Davis recommended that veterans day be turned into a 'national' event as part of the Prime Minister's Britishness programme. The Queen boycotted all the "main events" according to the Times.
Claims that the Queen and the Prince were both invited to Saturday’s event were denied by both royal sources and the Ministry of Defence
And the paper also reported,
Phil Cooper, the father of Britain’s youngest soldier to be wounded in Iraq, Jamie Cooper, told the Daily Mail: “When you sign up, you take an oath to serve the Queen and country, laying down your life for the monarchy if necessary. Surely it’s not too much to ask for a senior royal to be bothered to turn up and take the salute.”
But perhaps the Queen knew what she was doing as the real tradition has been cast aside. Perhaps this too should added to Peter Oborne's list of New Labour's shredding of the constitution. Meanwhile a most peculiar chopped off version of the Union Jack has been created to 'brand' the event, with attractive service girls holding it aloft on its Flickr page. The website also has a button you can click to show your support. So far there are 61,152 impressions, considerably less than the armed forces themselves, not to speak of their family members.
Maybe the real question is why so many events have taken place at all - given hat they are blatently a New Labour ploy. I suspect there is a slightly subversive defiance taking place. Everyone knows that the Iraq deployment was a military humiliation born of mendacity, while Afghanistan is serving US strategy not the UK's. For the first time while they are serving, soldiers are publically percieved as the victims of government policy. If so, the cheerful applause for them is also an expression of patriotic opposition to the government.
Nonetheless, a battle over Britain has been declared if this usurpation of vetrans day continues to be claimed as a "national" celebration of the UK.
