My guide to thuggery
‘Don’t they speak English?’ asked my husband, tossing over a copy of the Daily Mail as though it were my fault. The headline read: ‘Missing in action’. It referred to Dan Jarvis disappearing from view in his new job as Defence Secretary. The headline writers should know that, militarily, those missing in action are presumed dead. The Mail meant Awol – absent without leave. I mentioned this ignorant error here in 2022. In 2024 I remarked how odd it was that Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, should say about mob violence outside a migrant hotel near Rotherham: ‘It is organised, violent thuggery.’ Now Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary, is at it.
