Way of the World Michael Deacon

Everyone seems to have a different view as to why conscription is a non-starter. In yesterday’s Telegraph, Isabel Oakeshott said we’re too woke to fight. The chairman of the National Obesity Forum, meanwhile, has said we’re too fat. Surely, however, there’s an even bigger problem.

We’re too old.

For decades, Britain’s birth rate has been in freefall. So if the Third World War breaks out, we’re in real trouble. Since we’ve failed to produce enough young men to fight for our country, the old will have to do it. It’ll be a real-life

Dad’s Army. Except that, instead of staying nice and safe at home in Walmington-on-Sea, Pte Godfrey will be ordered to march on Moscow. His sister Dolly will have to prepare an awful lot of cucumber sandwiches.

I’m not being ageist. I’m just worried. One Nato official has said war could break out any time in the next 20 years. Well, in 20 years, I’ll be in my mid-60s. In which case, Pte Godfrey will be me. And I won’t need Pte Frazer to tell me what our prospects are.

After all, defeating Russia must be difficult enough, without your entire regiment having to nip to the loo every 20 minutes. I can just see myself now.

“I say, dear fellow, have you seen where I put my assault rifle?” “Yes. It’s in your hands.” “Why, so it is. Ever get that feeling where you capture St Petersburg, and then completely forget why you’re there?”

Still, there is one consolation. Britain’s birth rate may be low.

But Russia’s is even lower.

There’ll be a ceasefire every afternoon, so that both sides can go for a nice nap.

Backstairs Billy – a new play about Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother – has been given a very peculiar trigger warning. At the Duke of York’s Theatre in London, audiences are alerted to the fact that the play “is set in 1979, and consequently reflects some of the attitudes, language, and conventions of the time.”

If so, the play is highly unusual – because these days, it tends to be the opposite. Dramas set in the past are now almost invariably written to reflect the attitudes, language and conventions of the present.

Perhaps those dramas should be given trigger warnings, too.

“This period drama is set in the 1800s, but has been cast to make it look as if Britain was every bit as ethnically diverse in the Victorian age as it is in 2024. Any character expressing what would at the time have been near-universal views on sexuality, gender roles, race or the British Empire may automatically be assumed to be the villain.”

At any rate, nothing more effectively reflects the attitudes, language and conventions of the 2020s than the current row over the Globe’s new production of Richard III. According to reports, disabled actors are furious because the title role has been awarded to someone able-bodied, with no

“lived experience” of the spinal condition scoliosis – unlike the real Richard III. Yet at the same time, no one, as far as I’m aware, has objected to the fact that the person who’s been cast to play him is a woman. Which the real Richard III very much wasn’t.

But what’s the difference? Doesn’t it matter that this actress has no “lived experience” of being a man? Or are some types of “lived experience” less important than others? I suppose they must be. These days, no producer would dream of casting a white actor to play a non-white historical figure. Yet in an episode of Doctor Who only last month, a non-white actor was cast to play Sir Isaac Newton.

It’s all very puzzling. Personally, I think that if actors have to have had the same “lived experience” as their characters, the role of Richard III should go only to those with lived experience of being a 15th-century monarch. We must give opportunities to minorities. And minorities don’t come much smaller than that.

Ofcom has suggested that, to save money, Royal Mail should cut its deliveries to only three days a week. When I heard, I was shocked.

Mainly because I thought it was only three days a week already.

At least, that was the impression

I’d formed over the past year or so. To begin with, I assumed that any delays to our deliveries were due to the postal strikes. But even after the strikes were over, I can’t say I noticed much improvement. Days with no post, then a big bundle of it all at once.

Still, an unreliable service can have its benefits, as I discovered last month. If an old acquaintance has sent you a Christmas card, but you’ve forgotten to send them one, you can just tell them it must have got lost in the post – and these days, they’ll actually believe you.

Of course, it’s not just greetings cards that can get delayed. I find it particularly inconvenient when my copy of Private Eye arrives late. This is because, when I finally get to read it, I have to rack my brains in a strenuous effort to recall which news story from the previous month each joke is supposed to refer to.

Then again, this too has its benefits, because it surely provides a rigorous cognitive workout to anyone who’s worried about losing their memory in old age. In my view, the Government should offer everyone over the age of 40 a free subscription on the NHS. Thanks to the dire state of the postal service, our memories will soon be sharper than ever.