Bill Carmichael: Moaners lifted the party mood

No, by far and away the most effective advocates for the Queen were the small groups of anti-monarchist zealots who turned up at various times over the Jubilee weekend in an effort to spoil the celebrations. Honestly, have you ever seen a more miserable bunch of losers in your entire life?

In the event their sour, mean-spirited demonstrations constituted a spectacular own goal. The crowds around them simply waved their Union flags with more gusto and sang God Save the Queen even more loudly and effectively drowned them out.

What the republican campaigners fail to understand is that the Queen, far from being an anachronism, is more relevant than ever. We live in an increasingly diverse society and there is much that divides us. The Queen represents a potent symbol of unity that can bring together all the people of the UK and the wider Commonwealth regardless of politics, religion, nationality or skin colour. The miles of Union flag bunting and message of congratulations to Her Majesty adorning my local mosque is a powerful testament to that.

Instead of concentrating on those things that divide us, the Queen allows us to celebrate those things we have in common. Perhaps that’s why left wingers hate her so much? And just imagine if we had set up a free trade area with our Commonwealth cousins, capitalising on shared history and culture and mutual respect, instead of the dead end of the European Union.

Today we would be allied to economic powerhouses such as Singapore, Australia, India, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia instead of being handcuffed the rotting corpse of the old Brussels empire.

And if you ever find yourself in debate with one of these angry left wingers, there are two words which are guaranteed to hole the republican argument below the waterline and sink it without trace.

And those two words are – President Blair!

Forced reaction

The unhinged hysteria over the use of volunteer stewards during the Jubilee celebrations shows no sign of abating.

Former deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott denounced the use of “forced labour camps” and the Guardian and the BBC portrayed it as “slave labour” and heralded the return of Dickensian conditions to London. As the BBC’s idea of news these days is reading out stories pretty much verbatim from the Guardian, it is worth taking a deep breath and calmly looking at what actually happened.

Unemployed people from the West of England volunteered for the unpaid stewarding work, which is part of a training scheme leading to nationally recognised qualifications and the chance of well-paid work at the London Olympics.

The coach company bringing them to London misjudged the travel time and arrived early at 3am, rather than the scheduled time of 5am, and the volunteers had to hang around in chilly conditions for a couple of hours before their supervisors turned up.

Er…and that’s about it.

Forced labour camps? Slavery? Dickensian conditions? Really? Sure the coach drivers should have let the volunteers wait on the coach instead of turfing them out and driving off, but this a mistake and the company responsible has apologised profusely. And it seems the entire “story” is based on the complaints of two anonymous people out of 220 volunteers, many of whom have said they had a great time and are looking forward to working at the Olympics.