Thankfully, the ridiculous voyage by Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and a group of pro-Palestinian activists has been brought to a halt by the rigorous action of the Israeli Navy. The entire trip was a gimmick by a bunch of left-wing attention seekers.
However the fiasco did serve one purpose. It exposed Thunberg’s hypocrisy. Reportedly, she refused to watch a video of the Hamas atrocities on October 7, preferring to remain in her cocoon of ignorant, anti-Israeli prejudice.The irony is that if she were living under Hamas rule her voice would be silenced and she would have to dress according to the oppressive Islamic code.
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Elton John was wrong. In some circumstances, sorry can be the easiest word for politicians to utter, especially when they are expressing regret over an historic event for which they have no responsibility.
Tony Blair’s apologies for the Irish potato famine and the transatlantic slave trade gave him the chance to parade his political virtue without incurring any direct blame for either of these ugly episodes.
Tellingly, Blair never apologised for the greatest blunder of his premiership, the invasion of Iraq. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under pressure to apologise for her decision to reverse the withdrawal of winter fuel payments from most pensioners. So far she has refused to do so.
I think she should stick to this stance. An apology from her now would be meaningless, nothing more than a public relations stunt. Such a move would lack any credibility and would put no money in the bank accounts of pensioners. It would be far better to get future policy right than indulge in these verbal manoeuvres.
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The brilliant thriller writer and legendary Express columnist Frederick Forsyth deserved all the tributes paid to him after the sad news of his death this week, including the magnificent obituary by my colleague Matt Nixson in this paper.
As a brave RAF pilot, an intrepid foreign correspondent, and a bestselling novelist he certainly lived a full life.
As well as selling 75 million copies of his 25 books during his prolific career, his Express column was a provocative but much loved feature in the British newspaper landscape. It was the honour of my life to succeed him when he retired two years ago.
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When Clem Attlee became Prime Minister in 1945 he did not even have a press officer. How times change. This week it was revealed the Government is spending £270million-a-year on an army of 6,500 spin doctors in Whitehall. Deluged by propaganda, we are all paying the wages of spin.
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The American Cricket Authorities announced this week that they intend to win full test status for their nation. Until now, the US’s greatest connection to the sport lay in the Hollywood Cricket Club which in the 1930s contained stars like Errol Flynn and David Niven.
But the guiding force behind the club was the actor Charles Aubrey Smith who had actually been England’s cricket captain in the 1880s. As an actor, he specialised in gruff authority figures, and he brought some of that magisterial spirit onto the field at Hollywood.
In one match, after missing a series of easy catches, Smith ordered his butler to bring out his glasses. The servant did so with unctuous ceremony, only for Smith to miss another sitter and then growl loudly: “Damn fool, he’s brought out my reading glasses.”
