This is not a nation Britain’s brave wartime soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise - editor’s comment

In the throes of a global pandemic - a national and international public health emergency - Her Majesty set about reassuring us that she could see in our generation the same character, resilience and fortitude she saw in our wartime forebears.

She told us from the heart that she believed we would defeat coronavirus, just as this nation’s most courageous generation defeated tyranny and fascism, because she can see in us now what she saw in people then.

“Our streets are not empty,” she said. “They are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other. And when I look at our country today, and see what we are willing to do to protect and support one another, I say with pride that we are still a nation those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise and admire.”

One month later and the statue to the greatest leader this nation has ever had, Winston Churchill, is hidden beneath a steel box. The Cenotaph - a free nation’s thank you to the Glorious Dead to whom we owe our liberty - ensconced in steel for its own protection.

That is not a nation those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise; one that hides its story through fear? I do not think so.

Moreover, now is not the time to distract ourselves with worrying about protecting sacred sites of national importance. The death toll from Covid-19 has eclipsed that of The Blitz, the economic ruin runs far deeper.

And so it is time for loud voices and courageous characters to help remove that distraction by calling for, and helping to ensure, calm so that in the first order of business, we can return as a nation to saving as many lives as possible from coronavirus.

Then we can we begin a national conversation geared towards finding a way forward that protects the welfare of each and every person in the land, providing equal prospects, whilst ensuring the history of this great nation stands intact, offering life lessons - be that in the streets or in museums - to us all in perpetuity.

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James Mitchinson

Editor