Poppies at the Tower

I've never taken to Sheila Hancock; her strident support of the Labour Party despite their repeated attempts to bring the country to its knees, the manifest failure of socialism as a realistic form of Government over the years marked her out as a women with a  rosy tinted world view bordering on the ridiculous. Her inspiration comes from the postwar Government of Attlee that introduced widespread nationalisation of industry and the NHS in a mood of recompensing the public for years of hardship, regardless of the cost. She was one of those carried away with a notion of justice for the workers, delivered with the money found on trees.

Now, after years of fighting a futile battle, with the Socialists on the ropes everywhere, she has excelled herself; suggesting that the synthetic poppy fields created at the tower of London should be bulldozed rather than be sold raising millions for charities devoted to the welfare of the armed forces. Her motive for this destruction was her belief that poppies have come to glorify war and a wholesale destuction of each poppy, one for each of the fallen in the World Wars and subsequent actions, would bring home to the world that lives were needlessly lost in a warmongering world. How can anyone fail to understand the true significance of the poppy appeal and the need of the British Legion to  raise money for the long term support of the UK's brave troops in whatever discipline. The ceramic poppies have moved the world with their simple and graphic message. We don't need reminding of the horrors and perversity of war; only the ultimate sacrifice made by the Glorious Dead and our heartfelt pledge to 'Remember Them'. Why, then, destroy their beauty for the sake of issuing a pathetic message, lamenting past conflict and previous waste and destruction; but then Shiela Hancock has been peddling her sentimental nonsense all her adult life.