The metropolitan liberal elitists as the BBC despise the MCC, the private club that owns Lords, almost as much as they despise working class folks who vote for Reform UK. Today is the AGM of the MCC, of which I am a member, and our club wants to flagellate itself for being sexist. The BBC cannot get enough of it, if only the MCC was to admit that it was racist and homophobic too and that it had been damaged by Brexit.

Aged 4, daughter Jaya is being told to celebrate VE day at school today. I tried to explain what VE Day meant but could not in full. Aged 23, eldest daughter Olaf says she has no interest in family history. So for both of them when they grow up , here is my family and WW2: Churchill’s bunker, Arctic convoys, a Spitfire pilot and a Normandy hero, two deaths, Operation Mincemeat (covered in more detail here), a leg lost in Egypt, evacuations and at one step removed, the Air Vice Marshall on D Day, the executed Nazi who was half Jewish and the fortunate Hungarian Jew. I hope that, one day, my kids if nobody else, will find this interesting.

I doubt that either of these unconnected commentaries will win me any friends but both are highly topical and I’d rather go to my grave speaking the truth, discussing hard facts then saying nothing. The Christopher Booker/Cape Town water shortage reference is HERE