Still Up For It

The Glorious Successor, who bankrolled, in the name of national security, the wars which did so much to encourage the July 2005 bombings; the Glorious Successor, whose government has paid fulsome tribute to our brave servicepersons while closing military hospitals and quibbling over compensation for the maimed; the Glorious Successor, who cannot spare money for proper housing, health care or equipment for those fighting abroad, but who spares no effort or expense in kitting out riot police at home; the Glorious Successor, who presumes to lecture the Afghans about the corruption of their government; the author of Courage: Eight Portraits, who has probably been almost as near the field of battle as might potentially tend to cause him the possibility of a not excessive degree of personal inconvenience, plans to pledge not to walk away, nor to be "deterred, dissuaded or diverted from taking whatever measures are necessary to protect our security" by continuing with the measures that have endangered it. Doubtless the Glorious Successor will be wearing a poppy as he makes his pledge; and doubtless, thanks to the usual cosmic oversight, the miserable assemblage of paper and plastic will not wither in his buttonhole as he speaks.