The Spectator’s Notes | 24 October 2009

When I was asked to write the foreword for the document which launched the Nothing British campaign this week, I hesitated. The campaign draws attention to the BNP’s abuse of military symbols and its attempts to recruit servicemen and their families. It is a good cause, but I am slightly suspicious of the easiness with which middle-class people parade their ‘courage’ in standing up to the BNP — ‘yielding to no one’ in their detestation of its ‘loathsome’ attitudes — when it actually requires no courage at all. If there is an establishment conspiracy to suppress the BNP, that can only feed the myth upon which it thrives. But I eventually agreed to help the campaign because of its specific focus on the armed services. We do not know how lucky we are to have non-political armed forces, and that political detachment needs constant policing. The current chaos in defence policy makes the ranks vulnerable to the politics of resentment.