Captain tom

Should it be illegal to be a moron? That’s the question we really need to be asking ourselves in the wake of the arrest of a man in Scotland over a vile tweet about the death of Captain Tom Moore, the Second World War veteran who became a national treasure in 2020 for his NHS fundraising. Police Scotland has confirmed that a 35-year-old man has been charged ‘in connection with communication offences’. What it is he actually said wasn’t made clear. But a subsequent report, and much online chatter, points to this delightful post: ‘The only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella, buuuuurn.’ That the post was

Captain Sir Tom Moore was a lovely man and an inspiration to centenarians everywhere. Actually, forget centenarians; if the rest of us could be so chipper and nicely turned out at half his age, we’d be doing well. I was oddly moved to hear of his death, though not, I fear, to the point of turning out at my window to applaud. But then I gave the communal pot banging a miss for the NHS during lockdown too, so that’s nothing new. I’m not convinced Boris Johnson is right, though, when he says Captain Tom deserves a statue. After all, he was a modest man, Sir Tom; I’m not sure he