‘Keir Starmer and the medal that is gone AWOL’

When Britain voted for a new government, it did not vote for Keir Starmer or for the Labour Party, whatever box they ticked on the ballot paper.

They voted for change. For racist babies to become reasonable grown-ups, for sleaze to give way to decency, for corruption and cheap gimicks to be replaced by proper politics. The sort where you can argue the merits of an idea, rather than scream about whether you believe in it the most.

Keir and his party would be disappointed to learn that, for most of the country, their change is not that change-y. Refugees are still called a security threat, taxes are still high with nothing to show for it, and Wardrobegate proved Labour is just as capable as the Tories of not realising what abuse of power looks like, when it’s them doing it. They just have smaller pockets.

Sqn Ldr ‘Pete’ Peters is more than disappointed. He is despondent that, 70 years after he flew through mushroom clouds in service of his country, 24 months after medal criteria drawn up the Tories deliberately excluded him, 100 days since the new Defence Secretary promised a review, and just 6 days before Remembrance Sunday, he still doesn’t have the Nuclear Test Medal.

The medal is for all those who took part in Britain’s nuclear bomb trials. It was won after a four-year Mirror campaign, and a year-long wait for Whitehall to sort it out, and will this weekend be worn proudly on the chests of 2,751 veterans in 25 countries. Almost as many again will be polished where they sit, next to the photo of a handsome young man lost before his time.

The medal is not compensation for the injuries they claim to have suffered, nor is it an answer to where their medical records have been hidden. But it is acknowledgement: worthless, thankless, but carrying the weight of state machinery which had spent the better part of a century telling these men and their families nothing they did mattered.

Those who got it were seen and honoured, at last. But hundreds of men like Pete felt the tang of dishonour, because their service had been to fly or maintain aircraft which had flown sampling missions through the nuclear clouds of Britain’s enemies and allies. Their data helped our own scientists, and helped keep us safe and ahead of the game during the Cold War when the world teetered, often, on the cusp of calamity.

Yet Pete, who at nearly 93 is the oldest of those ‘cloud flyer crews’, had his application for the medal bluntly rejected, thanks to the narrow rules the Tories had laid down and refused to alter. When the Mirror picked up his story soon after the change of government, a source close to the new Defence Secretary John Healey said: “These missions were vital for our national security. We pledged in Opposition to take a hard look at this commemorative medal criteria… that is what we will now do.”

That was 100 days ago. In the time since, Parliament has had two recesses, Labour held its annual conference, and most of Whitehall took the summer off after a long 14 years of chicanery and a general election. And Pete, the last survivor of Operation Bagpipes who now suffers an incurable lung condition, moved to receiving care at home.

He has given up hope of receiving the medal in time for this Sunday, when he intended to get in his motorised wheelchair and attend a ceremony at the village war memorial. He was one of the few pilots who received the Air Force Cross for his part in the testing programme, but it was not further recognition for himself he wanted.

His comrades from 1323 Flight and 540 Squadron are thought to be all dead, from cancer. Pete survived his own tumour, and wanted their ‘op’ to be included in the medal criteria for their sakes, and that of their families. He particularly wanted to honour one bomber crew lost at sea, and whose bodies were never found.

As Starmer might say: let me be clear. These are the foundations that need to be fixed. The hard, unglamorous work of public office. The sense of service. Country before party. It’s all the slogans, and it’s about 5 days away from being AWOL.

There is no clear or sound argument for these veterans not to have the medal, nor for hundreds of others who took part in dozens of subsequent ops well into the 1980s. They all took the same risks, served the same Queen, and were in service of the same country; now they are being dishonoured the same way, because no-one would do it sooner.

Yet all we know is that the review was held; that ‘stakeholders’ other than the veterans were asked their opinion, from secretive honours committees to Whitehall mandarins, and it took them unconscionable months to decide. The review has been returned for ministerial sign-off, and it has not been.

Whether this is because the response of the mandarins was unsatisfactory, or the ministers are too busy, no-one can say. But what must be said is that, if Labour cannot even manage this tiny, justified, cheap and simple change to the machinery of state, then it probably isn’t up to changing its socks, never mind the NHS.

People voted for a government that was saner, kinder, more competent. If, in 100 days, the denials and processes that have so often destroyed a minister’s good intentions have done so yet again, then Starmer’s lot will fail at everything, and in double-quick time. Because if Labour cannot overcome it even to honour our most betrayed heroes, what good CAN it do?

There is a saying about breaking a butterfly upon a wheel. In this case, it’s more like all the potential for change of a chrysalis being ground into the dirt by the heel of one more public school git too fat for his suit. And I had hoped we’d got rid of those.