What a travesty... the Armed Forces ‘drop’ Her Majesty
A galaxy of stars come out for Britain’s master of the universe
THE world paid tribute yesterday to the remarkable man who overcame crippling disabilities to pursue his passion of unravelling the secrets of the universe.
Actors and academics were among the mourners at the funeral of the renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking, who died still striving to answer life’s biggest questions.
Hundreds of wellwishers, young and old, lined the streets of Cambridge and THE Ministry of Defence has sparked outrage after removing the Queen’s title from its official Facebook page amid concerns among top brass that the Army is seen as ‘too elitist’.
Defence chiefs triggered a furious backlash last week when they informed hundreds of thousands of Facebook users that they were altering the page’s name from Her Majesty’s Armed Forces to UK Armed Forces – offering no explanation for the change.
Within hours, the page was bombarded with angry messages from people accusing top brass of being disrespectful to Her Majesty. And on Friday, MoD chiefs reversed the controversial decision, after being contacted by The Mail on Sunday.
The furore comes just weeks after the MoS exposed an official plan by top brass to rebrand the Army in a bid to make it appear less elitist.
General Sir Nick Carter, new Chief of the Defence Staff, dropped the Army’s ‘Be the Best’ motto and its historic crest – but his move was burst into spontaneous applause as the cortege pulled up outside Great St Mary’s Church. An arrangement of white lilies representing the universe and another of white roses to illustrate the polar star were placed on top of his coffin.
The church bells rang out 76 times – one for each year of the extraordinary life of a man who was diagnosed with thwarted by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who put the politically correct plans on hold.
Last week’s Facebook debacle brought a new barrage of criticism. One user, Rob Yuill, said: ‘UK Armed Forces? This is simply disgraceful to the Queen and the country. It’s the Queen’s military and not the Government’s.’
And Hayden Edwards asked: ‘Do us servicemen and women no l onger fight for Queen and country?’
The move appeared all the more disrespectful as Her Majesty remains Head of the Armed Forces and still holds motor neurone disease at the age of 21, and told he wouldn’t live to see his 25th birthday.
Prof Hawking’s 1988 book, A Brief History Of Time, introduced physics to the wider public and was on The Sunday Times’ bestseller list for a record 237 weeks.
His coffin was carried into the church by six porters from Gonville and Caius College, where he was a fellow for more than 50 years. The family mourners were led by Prof Hawking’s Honorary Colonel and Colonelin- Chief titles in more than 30 UK military units, including the Grenadier Guards and Royal Engineers.
Last night, the MoD issued a statement claiming the name had been changed in error and was not part of any overriding plan to rebrand the Army.
But the damage has already been done, according to Colonel Richard Kemp, former British Army commander in Afghanistan. He said: ‘ This was a stupid, short- sighted thing to do. Why seek to erase Her Majesty from a Facebook page? There was nothing to be gained. The connections to Her Majesty are one of the reasons why the Armed Forces are such a great institution.
‘I don’t think the advertising ex-wife Jane and their three children, Lucy, Robert and Timothy.
Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar for his betrayal of the physicist in the movie The Theory Of Everything, was one of several speakers among a congregation of 500.
Felicity Jones, who starred as Jane Hawking in the film, was another mourner.
Prof Hawking’s ashes will be interred at Westminster Abbey in London, next to the grave of Sir Isaac Newton. agencies who advise our commanders really understand the military community, old or young. Soldiers respect Her Majesty far more than they do any politician. Governments come and go but the Royal Family remains genuinely supportive and intrinsically linked to the Armed Forces.
‘ It is a myth to think the Armed Forces benefit from trying to look modern or to rub out the past.’
The Her Majesty’s Armed Forces Facebook page is hugely popular, ‘ liked’ by 850,000 users around the world.
An MoD spokesman added: ‘ We constantly review our channels to make sure we’re telling Defence’s story well, including our proud links with the Royal Family.
‘On this occasion, we made a title change in error, which has been resolved. The bond between the military and the monarchy i s hi s t ori c and enduring and we will always champion that in the stories that we publish.’
THE Labour Party survives as a political force in spite of its leader, not because of him. Its traditional voters are decent democrats, opposed to terrorism and bigotry, who have little in common with Jeremy Corbyn.
But until now many of them have been prepared to put up with the Corbynite takeover of their party, perhaps calculating that in office these militants would make the usual compromises that firebrands often do make when they finally achieve power. That calculation must surely now be jettisoned.
It is usually reasonable to judge a man by the company he keeps. A growing mountain of evidence shows that Mr Corbyn has been prepared to associate with the most grotesque extremists of all – Holocaust deniers and spreaders of antiJewish poison.
He says he did not realise these people held these views. If this is true (and it is hard to see how he can truly have been so unobservant), that does not excuse him. It is part of a leader’s job to be vigilant about the kind of people he allows to get near him. If he has failed in that, he has failed at leadership itself.
When he was first propelled to his astonishing eminence, many regarded Mr Corbyn as a rather harmless, bemused old gentleman, snatched from his allotment and shoved into the front rank of politics by a series of accidents.
Given the repeated failures of his more conventional predecessors, Labour supporters were tempted to give him a chance.
Now they have given him that chance, and it has been proved beyond doubt that he and his fanatical faction are not fit to be allowed near power.
The Labour Party itself must sort out the mess it has made, and that is not going to be easy. But in the meantime, sensible Labour voters would do well to withhold their support until Mr Corbyn has gone back to the obscure fringe where he belongs, and which he should never have left.