No Rah-Rah, No Remembrance

Disagreements have arisen in the committee set up by the late Head Boy to oversee the national blubber-and-gloat for the centenary of the First World War. Apparently one or two citizens of nowhere are not inclined to content themselves with remembering who won, and have raised the question of whether certain discreditable events that followed the Armistice should also be commemorated. Menzies Campbell dared to ask whether the Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany, which is nearly as controversial a conundrum as whether Hitler's little get-together in Foch's railway carriage humiliated France. This year also sees the centenary of colonial atrocities in Ireland and India, of race riots in Cardiff, and of the very first Remembrance Day when some servicemen were so unpatriotic as to be more concerned about their living standards than about the greater glory of the Empire. Naturally, the Government has been quick to intervene and protect the public mind from all such treasonous bolshiness, not least because the Recrudescent Imperium's relations with certain countries might suffer from too much truth and reconciliation. Should the Irish ever find out about the Black and Tans, for example, the consequences for the delicate diplomatic achievements of Boris and the Brexiteers might verge on the apocalyptic.