Commonwealth is thriving despite luvvie naysayers

IT IS customary and very trendy these days to slag off this country and top of the horror list is the long-gone British Empire. How odd then that so many countries that were never British colonies seek to join the successor institution – the Commonwealth.

Last Sunday two more entered the ranks – Gabon (once French) and Togo (first German, then French). Others are Rwanda (ex-Belgian) and Mozambique (Portugal). If our rule was that awful you would think they would stay away.

Back in the Sixties and Seventies, in the first flush of post-independence Africa, I roamed that continent, mostly watching and listening. To believe today’s luvvies and wokeists, you would think we were hated. On the contrary, I met nothing but affection for Britain and the British.

In Ghana I recall being told: Since you lot left we haven’t had a court judgment that wasn’t purchased. What the speaker meant was we didn’t take bribes.

And he was right. Our District Commissioners listened to the evidence and formed a judgment based upon it. In final retirement they returned to this country as poorly-paid as they had left it.

Since then no government high-up, civil servant or judge has expected to leave office other than as extremely wealthy. How nice it would be if the luvvies could do a bit of research and get their facts right.

IT MUST be gratifying for all those who put their lives on the line during the Iraq War and were then persecuted almost to their graves by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) to see the moving spirit behind their misery finally facing a court himself.

IHAT was actually set up by our Ministry of Defence to its eternal shame, then closed down in 2017, branded “an unmitigated failure”. It sought to charge our boys with a range of war crimes they never committed.

Leading the charge against them and causing limitless distress was Public Interest Lawyers and its founder/chief Phil Shiner. He was finally struck off for dishonesty, then went bankrupt and is now to appear in court, charged with fraud linked to a series of claims made against our veterans.

It has taken too many years but it looks as if the persecutor-in-chief of those (now) old men will himself now be the one facing a jury.