I See No Ships

Our right Royal Navy has been the subject of ridicule on these pages before and they’re here again. Royal Navy ships remain tied to the quay in Portsmouth for lack of fuel, our latest and greatest aircraft carrier was towed to the scrapyard and they have long celebrated their members (no pun intended) who are women with penises that seem to fancy a life on the ocean waves (once they get some fuel).

You would think that the senior service would be focusing on how to become fighting fit, repel boarders, and set sail to right wrongs wherever wrongs are being committed on the high seas. You’d think, but you’d be wrong. Instead of spending money on ships and weapons the Royal Navy has just committed £2.4 million towards the creation of an Equality and Diversity team. Some savings have presumably been made in the physical training budget, as they have just announced that future recruits to the navy will not have to be competent swimmers. This probably makes some sense as they are unlikely ever to set out to sea in the first place.

Not to be outdone in the stupidity stakes, the British Army recently announced that, reversing a long-standing policy, it would be permitting soldiers to grow beards. This move, it is reckoned, will make the army more attractive to people of either gender who want to grow beards. I’d suggest that if you are the type of man who would only consider taking the King’s shilling provided you were allowed to grow a beard then, perhaps, the army isn’t the place for you. Just in case you were not aware, you’ll be asked to do much worse things in the army than shave each day. On the other hand, if you are the kind of woman who wants to grow a beard, there’s a place reserved for you on HMS Diversity, currently moored at Portsmouth harbour.

We already know about the Royal Air Force which abandoned equality and diversity in favour of all black and ethnic minority recruitment at the expense, specifically, of white men. It seems that some women, possibly with joysticks intact, have been piloting RAF planes for quite some time.

None of this is to say that a black transgender woman cannot fire a gun or fly a plane. To say so would be discrimination. But pursuit of the equality and diversity agenda and lowering standards to accommodate the self-obsessed snowflakes of Gen Z appear to have become the primary aims of our armed forces. If black and ethnic minority people are being turned away from the armed forces on the grounds that they are black and ethnic minority people then that is a disgrace. But if they are being turned away because they do not meet the required standards, along with hordes of white people (mainly men) who also do not meet the required standards, then that is entirely appropriate.

The armed forces trip over themselves to celebrate anything that contains the letters L, G, B & T. The RAF have long celebrated Pride Month, the Royal Navy has ‘explored’ LGBTQ+ history in the navy and the army ‘celebrates’ diversity at Pride marches. Does anyone ever stop to ask ‘why?’ Surely the purpose of the armed forces is to defend our country and inflict lethal force on our enemies in time of war? They should be celebrating famous victories and the heroes who contributed to them, whether they were gay, straight, transgender or any of the other letters.

It is impossible to fathom how celebrating anything other than what they are good at contributes to the mission of our armed forces. Come to think of it, they may not actually be any good at doing anything these days. Let’s hope that they are not put to the test until they have seen the light, and acknowledged the possibility that diversity could be dangerous.