RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Remember, keep in mind the Fifth of November… as a result of quickly will probably be cancelled

Remember, remember the Fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot. For there is a reason why gunpowder and treason should ne’er be forgot.

That’s a rhyme which could be recited by generations of British schoolchildren, mine included. Until recently.

After Christmas and Easter, November 5 was one of the highlights of our year. Penny For The Guy, fireworks, hot chestnuts, sausages and jacket potatoes roasting in the embers of the bonfire.

The sulphurous remains of rockets, Catherine wheels and Roman candles lingered in the air for days afterwards.

We also knew why we marked the date, to commemorate the anniversary of a failed attempt by Catholics led by Guy Fawkes to blow up the House of Lords during the State opening of Parliament in 1605.

As the old joke had it, Fawkes was the last man to enter the Palace of Westminster with honourable intent.

But make the most of it while you can, because the way things are going Guy Fawkes Night, as we used to call it, is well on the way to being cancelled.

And not just because, as Quentin Letts reminded us in yesterday’s Mail, Bonfire Night is increasingly being suffocated by the ghastly American ‘tradition’ of celebrating Halloween.

That’s been going on for more than 35 years. I can recall writing a column for London’s Evening Standard, back when it was still a newspaper, lamenting the obliteration of Guy Fawkes Night by its commercialised US interloper.

In the hands of feral British youth, Trick or Treat became just another excuse for demanding money with menaces.

So I suppose it was only a matter of time before the politicians became involved. A killjoy think tank, supported by a Labour MP, is demanding that fireworks should be banned.

The Social Market Foundation (SMF) wants bangers and sparklers replaced with lasers, drones and ‘silent’ displays. In a foreword to the report, Labour MP Andrew Parkes called for ‘practical steps to reduce the harm fireworks cause’ to animals, ‘vulnerable’ people and – yep, you guessed – the environment.

Fireworks are about to become the latest casualty of the deranged dash to Net Zero. Has anyone told the Chinese? Thought not.

Parkes is living proof that the old saw about Guy Fawkes wasn’t too far wide of the mark.

According to the SMF, 60 per cent of the public support the proposals. Really? Where did they get that figure from? Has anybody ever asked you whether we should ban fireworks? Me, neither.

Yet on the basis of these made-up statistics, they are calling on councils to establish ‘firework-free zones’.

And, sadly, they’re pushing on an open door. There’s nothing councils enjoy more than banning anything which brings even fleeting pleasure to the public.

When it comes to fireworks, many Town Halls are already well ahead of the game. First out of the gate was Ilfracombe in Devon, which forced 2,000 spectators at the annual Guy Fawkes Night to watch a virtual bonfire on a giant TV screen.

Heaters were arranged strategically around a field to create the illusion of a real bonfire and loudspeakers played the sound of wood crackling.

Organisers concluded they had no alternative because they couldn’t afford the cost of complying with precautions demanded by council elf’n’safety nazis.

If they’d gone ahead with a traditional Bonfire Night, they would have had to hire steel barriers, an army of stewards and first-aiders. and put the fire brigade on standby.

Watford went a step further years ago, banning the annual November 5th celebrations altogether, on the grounds that: ‘It goes against one of the council’s key objectives of having a smoke-free town’.

You couldn’t make it up.

In Slough, they sent in uniformed stewards to confiscate sparklers from five-year-olds, even though they were being supervised by their parents.

And only this week, we learned that Colchester Rugby Club has called off this Sunday’s fireworks display after complaints from a local animal sanctuary that it might frighten the horses.

A statement from the club said: ‘It is with much regret that due to unreasonable pressure from the local equine community, the Executive Committee of Colchester RFC have taken the decision to cancel the Fireworks Event at Raven Park this year.’

My best guess is that by the end of the current lemon-sucking Labour terror, MP Andrew Parkes will get his way and fireworks will have been banned for good.

Either that, or they’ll decide that burning effigies of Guy Fawkes is an insult to Catholics and if allowed to continue will endanger the Irish peace process, or something.

In future they’ll start sending in the Old Bill to break up illegal bonfire parties. In Scotland they’ve already got ‘firework control zones’, backed by £5,000 fines and up to six months in jail.

As for why we mark November 5th, do they bother teaching kids about the Gunpowder Plot any more, in between filling their heads with critical race theory, slavery and transgender propaganda? Shouldn’t have thought so for a minute.

So enjoy Bonfire Night while it lasts. And when they finally get round to cancelling it altogether, remember, remember, you read it here first.

English football clubs have traditionally marked Remembrance Day on or around November 11.

So I couldn’t help wondering why Everton decided to bring the ceremony forward by two weeks. Turns out that they haven’t got another home game at Goodison Park until November 23 and they didn’t want to miss out on paying their respects.

Fair enough. But then the players immediately followed up this dignified commemoration by taking the knee, the fatuous gesture of support for Black Lives Matter, favoured by Keir Starmer.

This was particularly distasteful in light of the demonstrations last week by gormless – largely white, middle-class – BLM useful idiots in support of Chris Kaba, the ultra-violent South London gangsta lawfully shot dead by a police marksman now in hiding with a bounty on his head. BLM also wants to destroy the traditional family and defund the police.

In football’s cynical, nauseating pursuit of every virtue-signalling bandwagon, they are giving succour to those who want to tear down the society which the men and women we remember on November 11 fought to defend.

Our glorious war dead must be turning in their graves.

Forgive me if this column is a little football-heavy, but one of the few online bloggers I follow is the splendid Boy Hotspur, a man after my own heart when it comes to criticising the state of play at Daniel Levy’s Leisuredome, formerly known as White Hart Lane.

As former manager Keith Burkinshaw remarked on leaving: ‘There used to be a football club over there.’

Harry Hotspur, his nom-de-blog, also strays into other areas.

Recently, I noticed he referred to our current Prime Minister as ‘Keith’ Starmer. Was this a slip of the keyboard, or does he know something we don’t?

Just as I always thought the real name of camp ex-Tory MP Norman St John Stevas was ‘Norman Stevens’, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Starmer was actually christened ‘Keith’.

Come to think of it, Keith is a far more likely name for the son of a self-employed Surrey toolmaker.

Maybe he adopted Keir – after Labour’s founding father Keir Hardie – to further his political career and appeal to his socialist acolytes.

Until he can produce his birth certificate, Keith it is.

Welsh Labour MP Steve Witherden has been carpeted by the Deputy Speaker for taking a carton of milk into the Commons chamber. Maybe he was planning to throw it at Nigel Farage.