I know I said no more politics until 2026, but I just had to reprint this from the Letters page of The Times a couple of days ago. Hope I don’t get arrested. Apparently I’m in the right demographic.
Sir, The home secretary proposed to ban Palestine Action on the ground of “unacceptable criminal damage” after they infiltrated RAF Brize Norton (“Palestine Action’s rise from ashes of Corbynism to public enemy No 1”, Aug 9). In the 1980s when I was UK commander of the RAF Greenham Common cruise missile base, I had a £250,000 annual budget to repair damage done by peace protesters to the perimeter fence. We had a strong Ministry of Defence police presence to stop intruders, often in a rather Benny Hill fashion. The intruders were left in no doubt that if they tried to infiltrate the secure storage area with its 96 nuclear warheads, they would be shot by US air force military police, who were a mean crowd. There were thousands of such protesters “threatening” the base, but their freedom of speech was always respected and I never heard anyone in Whitehall or the Pentagon suggest that they should be classed as terrorists.
Wg Cdr Andrew Brookes (ret’d)
London SW9