But one notices that Wootton Bassett is being used by the media to operate a sort of jingoism in reverse. Soldiers are lauded to the skies, not to reinforce our campaign in Afghanistan, but to undermine it. We are not told what the soldiers are doing and why. Instead, their losses are used against their mission. Brave men get killed and therefore the war is bad, the argument runs. By that logic, Britain could never win any war.
On the Radio 4 Today programme on Thursday, there was a particularly disgraceful presentation about the friends of the young Yorkshire soldier from Castleford, killed last week. His chums naturally said how sad they were. The reporter, "leading" the witnesses, invited them to say that the death made the war pointless and to speculate that it would stop recruitment.
The British could never have won the battle of Britain with a press as they have today.
Never have so many been screwed so much by so few.
