Leading article

If William Beveridge were commissioned to write another report into Britain’s social ills, he would find that two of his ‘giant evils’ — ignorance and idleness — still stalk and shame Britain. If William Beveridge were commissioned to write another report into Britain’s social ills, he would find that two of his ‘giant evils’ — ignorance and idleness — still stalk and shame Britain. At the time, one might have argued that this was because schools lacked enough money or because the economy was a ruin. But today, when schools enjoy record funding and immigrants occupy one in seven jobs, only one conclusion can be drawn: that the welfare state has been incubating the very evils it was designed to eradicate.

The royal family has a gift for laying on a wedding just when the nation’s spirits most need lifting. The Queen’s marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947 helped to rejuvenate a nation exhausted by war and demoralised by rationing. The wedding of Princess Anne to Mark Phillips in 1973 aroused extraordinary excitement in a Britain disfigured by vicious industrial disputes (and polyester flares). The marriage of Charles and Diana in 1981 distracted the public’s attention from street riots and shocking unemployment figures; indeed, with hindsight, the near hysteria it provoked was an ill omen.

Various political attempts to institute a national British day have failed, perhaps because Britain already has one. It is Armistice Day, and it is marked not by the waving of flags, or by the recitation of a national creed, but by keeping a silence in memory of those who sacrificed their lives for our country. Armistice Day, however, has always been about the living as well as the fallen. The poppies we wear are not just a commemoration of Flanders, but a sign that we support our soldiers in the battlefield today. Since the Taleban were toppled from Kabul nine years ago, 180,000 servicemen and women have fought campaigns in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

While it may be a little dangerous to speak so soon, a remarkable gulf is growing between the responses of the British and the French public to their governments’ attempts to balance the books. While it may be a little dangerous to speak so soon, a remarkable gulf is growing between the responses of the British and the French public to their governments’ attempts to balance the books. In Britain, there has been a calm reaction to the cuts so far announced, with a clear majority supporting the government’s bungled announcement that it is to restrict child benefit payments. In France, the only austerity measure to speak of is raising the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 — and it has brought protesters to the streets.

India has given a good impression of a country that views the Commonwealth as an embarrassment. It should be an honour to host the commonwealth Games. We hoped that India would use the event to show the world that it is not just an emerging superpower with nuclear weapons and a space programme, but a country with a sense of pride — as China did with the Beijing Olympics. Instead, India has given a good impression of a country that views the Commonwealth as an embarrassment. Advance parties from England, Scotland, Australia and Canada arrived to find squalid and even incomplete accommodation. There were reports of walls bubbling with mould and floors covered with pools of stagnant water. The site is so structurally unsound that one of the footbridges collapsed.

But, if the protestors know where Benedict XVI stands on issues of sexual morality, they have a very shaky grasp of his precise relationship to these issues. The arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Britain has provoked protests that, in the intesity of their anger, far exceed those that greet the state visits of blood-drenched dictators. That is because the Pope is seen to represent — in ascending order of secular distaste — religion, Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church and the conservative wing of Catholicism. Fair enough: Benedict does represent all of these things. He opposes atheism, regarding it as a desperately sad alienation of man from his creator.

One subject about which we hope pupils will always be taught is the Blitz, which began in London 70 years ago this week. The ‘spirit of the Blitz’ may have been over-romanticised, but it is right that the brave determination with which Britons faced the aerial assault remains a source of national pride. But British courage is perhaps not best recalled by the proposed new memorial to the airmen of Bomber Command in London’s Green Park. While no one can doubt that we are deeply indebted to the 55,573 who lost their lives, and who are already remembered at the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, there is a good reason why a memorial specifically dedicated to Bomber Command was not built after the war.

For anyone still clinging to the idea that we have brought democracy and human rights to Afghanistan, the latest news from the country should come as a shock. The Taleban seem to be growing in confidence and influence. First there was the shooting of aid workers in Badakhshan; now a widow accused of becoming pregnant after the death of her husband has been flogged 200 times, then shot in the head. Rather than mobilising troops to rescue the woman, the local security chief simply condemned the punishment as ‘very severe’. Now that both President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron have signalled their intention to withdraw troops, it is as if the Taleban consider they have won the war and are preparing for power. But we cannot abandon Afghanistan yet.