๐ฌ๐ง๐บ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ฑ โOnly those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.โ โ T.S Eliot
Leicester, England
Joined July 2015
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The grandfather I never would meet, you did you duty and then re-enlisted because you knew you were needed. Mum was only 16 months old when her dad died. RIP Archie, maybe one day we might meet.
Alan Taylor retweeted
When Whitehall's Awareness Calendar Forgets Britain's History
Britain's Foreign Office reportedly found room for 110 awareness days in its diplomatic calendar for 2026. Among them were Bi-visibility Day, International Lesbian Week, Transgender Awareness Month and International Allyship Day. Yet Remembrance Sunday, D-Day, VE Day and St George's Day were apparently overlooked. It is an extraordinary set of priorities for a department whose principal duty is to represent Britain abroad.
The calendar, reportedly circulated to British diplomats, includes six observances devoted to transgender and intersex causes and around twenty relating to mental health and neurodiversity. The question is why these campaigns command space in an official diplomatic calendar while events central to Britain's history, national identity and sacrifice are overlooked.
Remembrance Sunday is particularly revealing. Each November, the monarch, senior politicians, military leaders and thousands of veterans gather at the Cenotaph to honour those who died in Britain's service. It is one of the country's most solemn national occasions, recognised across generations and political divisions. Yet officials preparing a calendar for British diplomats apparently considered International Lesbian Week worthy of inclusion while overlooking the national service of remembrance.
The Foreign Office insists that it continues to honour the war dead. It hosts international diplomats at the Cenotaph, observes the two-minute silence on Armistice Day and supports the Royal British Legion. Those are important facts. But they do not explain the calendar's omissions. If the department already recognises Remembrance Sunday as a major diplomatic occasion, why was it absent from a document intended to remind diplomats of significant dates?
The wider problem is how deeply progressive politics and identity-based campaigns have become embedded in Britain's institutions. Across Whitehall, diversity, inclusion and awareness programmes increasingly shape administrative priorities, often with little obvious connection to departments' core duties. The Foreign Office calendar raises a troubling question: whose values are being promoted by officials entrusted with representing Britain, and why do these campaigns receive such prominence while the country's own national commemorations are overlooked?
For the Foreign Office, that distinction matters especially. Diplomats represent a country with a long history, constitutional traditions and responsibilities extending far beyond contemporary political fashions. D-Day and VE Day are milestones in the defeat of Nazi Germany. St George's Day forms part of England's national heritage. Remembrance Sunday honours those whose sacrifices helped preserve the freedoms enjoyed by subsequent generations. These occasions deserve recognition in any official calendar claiming to identify significant dates for Britain's representatives abroad.
The Foreign Office should publish its calendar and explain its choices. Awareness campaigns have their place, but Britain's national commemorations carry a different weight. When 110 awareness events make the list while Remembrance Sunday is apparently overlooked, the public is entitled to question Whitehall's priorities.
"Remembrance Sunday honours those whose sacrifices helped preserve the freedoms enjoyed by subsequent generations."
Alan Taylor retweeted
BREAKING NEWS UPDATE! As well as Six Innocent people Dead out of the 15 people Injured Two are police officers one is the officer seen below๐ who is reported to be seriously ill! Thoughts & Prayers from the Uk Policing Family with Both officers & all the other victims!!๐
Alan Taylor retweeted
For those still on patrol in the South Atlantic. We will remember them.๐๐ฌ๐ง
Alan Taylor retweeted
The Royal Anglian Regiment reflects at the time of Remembrance, a period to remember and think about those we have lost, and those who continue to battle with the past, on operations, exercises and day to day life. Lest we forget, We will remember them. Strength from Within.
#royalanglians #strengthfromwithin #soldier #veteran #remembrance #lestweforget
Alan Taylor retweeted
A new sign has been erected at Blair โPaddyโ Mayneโs statue, in Newtownards. Please share if you agree!
Alan Taylor retweeted
Code cracked for shipwreck padlock solving 400-year-old mystery
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c69qโฆ
Alan Taylor retweeted
The British Empire was the greatest work of human civilisation this world has ever seen. It outlawed the slave trade and then hunted it to extinction across every ocean on earth. It put the rule of law on six continents. It built the railway, the telegraph, the modern world. And when it left, India, Canada, Australia and fifty more kept the lot. That is not conquest. That is inheritance.
A quarter of the land on earth. A quarter of the people. Run from one wet island. Now ask what it did with that reach. Not what it took. What it built.
It built the law. Around a third of the world's people live under legal systems descended from English common law. The presumption of innocence. Trial by jury. A judge who can rule against the government and keep his job.
It built the machine age. The first intercity railway. The cable that joined Europe and America. By 1902 a telegraph ring circled the entire world, landing only on British soil.
It built the knowledge. Newton. Darwin. Faraday. Turing. Berners-Lee. The machine you are reading this on is, from the physics up, a British invention with foreign parts.
And it built a war on the slave trade. No great power had ever made war on the trade โ until Britain did. Sixty years. Around 1,600 ships seized. Around 150,000 Africans freed. Around 2,000 British sailors dead doing it.
Then the thing that proves the case. Every empire before it ended in fire. This one chose to go โ and the nations it freed kept the lot. The courts. The parliaments. The language. Then they formed a club with the country that had ruled them. Fifty-six members. Four of them were never British at all. Former French and Portuguese colonies asked to join.
Nobody applies to join the empire of a tyrant.
Was it perfect? No empire is. Fine. Now name the empire that did better. Name the one that bled for sixty years to end the slave trade. Name the one whose former subjects kept its courts. Name the one that packed up and went home.
There is one.
Nobody keeps the chains of a master. They keep the gifts of a builder. Fifty-six nations kept them. That is the verdict โ and it was not ours. It was theirs.
Others apologise for our history. I tell it โ properly, from the record, without the guilt. If that's what you want more of, stand with me: thestoicenglish.com/guardianโฆ
#history #britishempire
Alan Taylor retweeted
OTD 53yrs ago. Thames TV first broadcast this 26-part series on 31 Oct 1973. A huge promo beforehand & made a big impact in the era of 3 terrestial channels. Still a gold standard with Olivier's impeccable narration, outstanding footage & superb interviewees. Perched in front of the television, aged 12, special time put aside to watch it with my parents. H/t @FMXC1957
Alan Taylor retweeted
The current chancellor has NEVER had a job outside of a union or the Labour party.
Let that sink in for a minute.... He is 66 and has never had a proper job!
Anyone surprised that his budget was useless?
Alan Taylor retweeted
Japan is giving its ol' F-15Js a new lease on life! Called the Super Interceptor Upgrade, or the JSI programme, it adds an AN/APG-82 AESA radar, new EW gear and the ability to carry more than 16 AAMs, double the current eight! Thatโs a lot more punch from an Eagle that first entered service in the '80s! AND there's more... 1/2 ๐
Alan Taylor retweeted
Today in 1961, the Soviets test the largest nuclear weapon ever made. The 50-megaton "Tsar Bomba" blast is equal to 3,000 Hiroshima explosions. Its mushroom cloud reaches an altitude of 40 miles.
For more astounding facts about the Tsar Bomba, click militaryhistorynow.com/2013/โฆ
Alan Taylor retweeted
In the middle of a very ordinary residential street in Greater London there is a very peculiar looking marker jutting up from what looks like someone's front lawn.
The marker in question is an upright cannon, and it's crucial to understanding the mapping of Britain.
1/n
Alan Taylor retweeted
Space feels a little emptier tonight.
For so many of us, Sir Patrick Stewart was the captain we grew up trusting. When Jean-Luc Picard stood up to speak, you listened. He could face down a warship, defend a strangerโs humanity or quietly admit he was wrongโand make every moment believable.
He gave Star Trek its conscience as much as its commanding voice. Through Picard, he showed us that intelligence, compassion and courage belonged together in the captainโs chair.
And there was something rather special about a Yorkshire lad taking the bridge of the Enterprise and making the universe listen.
Thank you for the adventures, Sir Patrick. For the dignity, the warmth, and the belief that humanity might yet become something better.
The bridge is yours, Number One. Our captain has earned his rest.
Goodnight, Sir Patrick. And thank you. ๐
๐ค Made with AI
Alan Taylor retweeted
Shocking neglect and abuse of retired Lt Col Stephen Maguire DCM SAS, a natural born leader of men who spent 40 years in service to his country, and his son's long fight for justice. Please share Ben's post widely: "My father, Retired Lt Col Stephen Maguire DCM SAS, is a man who spent nearly 40 years in dedicated service to this country, serving from 1970 until 2009. He is a natural leader, a decorated soldier, to those who served with him. However, he has been completely abandoned and betrayed by the very system he gave everything to.
I am fighting for justice for my father. This struggle is a mirror of my own life; my own journey marked by the negligence of MPs, charities, and veteran services which led me to the absolute rock bottom of homelessness as a veteran myself. I know exactly what it is like to be discarded by the people who promised to provide support.
After years of fighting, we finally have a pathway toward the right care, but the damage is already done. The sheer scale of the failings along the way has crippled a man who likely only suffered from PTSD. What should have been a manageable recovery became a total collapse because of institutional incompetence.
This isn't a failure of one person or one office it is a systemic rot. For too long, the UK government, regardless of which side of the fence they sit on, has played a political game with the lives of our veterans. Whether it is Labour or the Conservatives, the result is the same: service men are treated as assets when they are useful and as liabilities the moment they are broken. We are told our sacrifices are "remembered," but the reality is that once the uniform comes off, the care vanishes.
We sought help for my dad, worried about PTSD and dementia resulting from his service. Through the SAS Association and Veteransโ Aid, he was referred to various healthcare facilities. Instead of professional care, he found negligence from these referrals.
In the last few years alone, he has been through multiple institutions that have failed him. We've dealt with incorrect diagnoses, doctors who tried to push him out of their care because he was "too difficult," and the removal of life-saving medication that led to him being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. He was sedated and left to decline without specialist care. His PTSD was completely ignored, and his medical history was dismissed. In one instance, he was admitted to the hospital due to low sodium caused by the excessive use of anti-psychotic medication.
The most infuriating part is the silence from the top. MPs have explicitly ignored this situation and failed to act for a Lt Col in 22 SAS. The "Military Covenant" is nothing more than a piece of paper used for photo opportunities while men like my father are left to rot.
The system has failed. The NHS has failed. Veteran charities have failed. From the MOD passing the buck to the medical incompetence of the facilities, my father has been abandoned like thousands of others.
I am posting this because we need accountability. It is not enough to simply "help" now; there must be justice for the way he was treated. My father spent four decades looking after his men and serving at the highest level for the United Kingdom; it is a national disgrace that the government failed to look after him and many like him.
Do not listen to the rhetoric the government continues to push. As this is an example of what happens after 40 years of dedicated service.
Please share this. We need the people in power to answer for this. We need leaders who actually lead, not politicians who just talk."
facebook.com/story.php?storyโฆ
bobshepherdauthor.com/2023/1โฆ
Alan Taylor retweeted
Jeremy has highlighted precisely whatโs wrong with F1 these days and the establishment doesnโt like it. They should stop bowing down to the Netflix generation and concentrate on what real fans want; great sounding engine and pure racing without all the interference.
