Leo McKinstry

The scene in the German port was like a vision of hell. As the incendiary bombs rained down on Hamburg that hot summer evening, the centre of the city was engulfed by a conflagration so intense that it seemed to herald the Apocalypse. Trees were uprooted, buildings demolished, trains ripped from their tracks, roadways turned to boiling liquid. Thousands of people were asphyxiated or died of smoke inhalation as they sought shelter in underground cellars. Those who made it to rivers or canals fared little better, for the lethal heat continued to suck oxygen out of the air, while the fire was even spread across water surfaces by exploding oil tankers and the debris from exploding barges.

Confronted by the threat of an ambulance workers’ strike, the Health Secretary could not have been more forthright: ‘Those concerned must face up to the consequences of their actions. Lives are at stake. The ambulance men have put their case to me. It will not be strengthened by some of them adopting what will be seen as a callous attitude to the lives and health of their fellow men. Enough is enough. Only the innocent will suffer if health service workers allow their anger to run out of control.

Perhaps the most powerful tribute to Queen Elizabeth’s success is that, at the time of her death, republicanism remains a fringe cause in Britain. Today we mourn the end of her unique reign, yet the immediate future of the Crown is secure because of the admiration she inspired. Without her steadfast, reassuring presence on the throne, the course of the monarchy could have been far more troubled over the last seven decades. After all, the very concept of a hereditary royal family is a glaring anachronism in our democratic age, where equality is celebrated, elitism deplored and privilege despised.

Two new measures, aimed at toughening the justice system, came into force last month. The first, known as Tony’s Law, enables the courts to impose a life sentence on anyone who causes or allows the death of a child or vulnerable adult in their care, while the maximum term for cruelty that leads to serious physical harm has been raised from ten to 14 years. The law’s title is a tribute to Tony Hudgell, a remarkably determined eight-year-old boy who, when he was a baby, was so badly abused by his parents, Jody Simpson and Tony Smith, that both his legs had to be amputated. Angry that these torturers were only sentenced to ten years each, the family who adopted Tony led the campaign for longer punishments and, partly due to Tony’s heroism, they achieved their goal.

The other week, when I was shopping in Margate, I saw a number of posters from Boots urging support for its campaign against ‘hygiene poverty’. Barely aware of the term, I looked it up online and was soon presented by claims that much of Britain is gripped by a crisis of personal neglect because of penury. According to the charity In Kind Direct, more than a third of people have either had to cut down on their hygiene essentials or go without them completely due to lack of money. The same charity warns that 43 per cent of parents of primary schoolchildren have had to ‘forgo basic hygiene or cleaning products’ because of the cost. These figures sound terrifying but do they bear any relationship to the reality of modern life in our country?

Among the unorthodox enthusiasms of Lloyd George was an interest in phrenology, the pseudo-science that holds that an individual’s character can be revealed by the shape and size of the cranium. Of his first sighting of the rising politician Neville Chamberlain during the Great War, Lloyd George later wrote, ‘When I saw that pinhead, I said to myself, he won’t be of any use.’ That has tended to be the verdict of history. Few prime ministers have been more vilified than Chamberlain, who died from cancer on 9 November 1940, seven months after he had left Downing Street. His very name is synonymous with cowardice in the face of oppression.

Setting out his nine principles of policing that underpinned the creation of the Metropolitan force in 1829, the home secretary Sir Robert Peel wrote that ‘the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them’. But those wise words are lost on today’s busy politicians who seem to measure their effectiveness by how many new burdens they impose on the justice system. In a culture where headline-grabbing gestures count for more than genuine accomplishments, the knee-jerk response to almost every major new criminal incident is to demand a change in the law. Priti Patel, the inheritor of Sir Robert’s mantle as home secretary, is the prime exemplar.

The Battle of Britain, which began 80 years ago this week, occupies a unique place in our island story. Its epic moral quality, representing the triumph of freedom over tyranny, continues to resonate to this day. The RAF’s victory marked a crucial turning point in the war; it was the first time the Nazi machine had suffered a defeat. If the Luftwaffe had gained the mastery of the skies over southern England in September 1940, the Germans might well have been able to launch a vast, seaborne invasion across the Channel. Beaten in the West, the Reich had to turn eastwards, to Russia, with disastrous consequences. What makes the tale all the more gripping is the narrow margin of the RAF’s success.

As the toxic furore over statues continues, a number of left-wingers yearn to see the monument to Winston Churchill in Parliament Square replaced by one to Clement Attlee. In their eyes, the austere, long-serving Labour leader is far worthier of veneration than the cigar-chomping imperialist. To them, Attlee is the man who not only helped win the war by taking charge of the home front but also created the socialist New Jerusalem in its aftermath. 'Let’s have a statue to Attlee. He is the really great figure in our history,' tweets one enthusiast. 'He did more to build up the future of our country than Churchill,' says another. But this adulation is overblown. Contrary to progressive mythology, Attlee was no secular saint.