During a ceremony at Windsor Castle on Tuesday, Her Majesty the Queen bestowed the George Cross on the National Health Service. The Prince of Wales was in attendance, as were a select group of ‘health leaders and workers’ from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The honour was announced last year, when the country was still flush with excitement from the successful vaccine rollout and a whiff of the Covid equivalent of the ‘Blitz Spirit’ still remained.
Twelve months on and that spirit has evaporated. Boris Johnson, the Glorious Leader, has been overthrown, the NHS is in a ruinous state with a care backlog of 6 million patients and rising. Even the legacy of Captain Tom, the symbol of the plucky defiance, has been tarnished with the Charity Commission investigating how his family managed the millions raised by the old soldier.
Handed the honour of promulgating the George Cross citation was Lieutenant Colonel Michael Vernon, Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.
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