What They Fought For

If pushed, Mr. Stone and his comrades might have said the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, whose members risk their own lives day in, day out, to save those of the stupid.

Stuff like the RNLI, and the people who do its work and keep it going, are what we do best, and the will of the politicians be damned. I'd love to see The Bugler Of The Bishopton Boys' Brigade or the bug-eyed bootleg butty banner, or indeed some of our more possibly pocket-picking Putinophilic peers, go ten rounds with the North Sea in the way the men of the RNLI do 24/7/365. The only consideration that they must have for their CV's as they're doing so might be whether they're going to be radically shortened in the immediate future.

Bella Bathurst's thesis that our lifeboatmen are the descendants of the 'Wreckers' might be true; but who cares? If so, they atoned for their fathers' sins long ago.

To paraphrase Keynes, when the end looks near the men of the RNLI will still be on standby at all hours of the day and night to save life in the sealanes, the embodiment of a type of manliness, courage and honour totally alien to our Tony Blairs, Fred Goodwins and Martin Kellys; and for them, three cheers.