Traditionally, here is what happens when Armistice Day falls on a Saturday. Millions observe a two-minute silence at 11am to remember the fallen. Life otherwise continues as it always does. Football grounds are crammed with cheering fans, pubs and clubs are packed with intoxicated revellers, high streets abound with bargain hunters. In short, an average Saturday, sprinkled with standard doses of cavorting, laziness and idle pleasures.
None of these activities had been considered an insulting lack of respect for Armistice Day. But a new exception has suddenly been invented, ad hoc, by those seeking to ban this Saturday’s protest against Israel’s blood-soaked onslaught in Gaza. An activity that is, literally, marching for an armistice on Armistice Day. This transparently cynical ruse has nothing to do with preserving the memory of my great-great-uncle Francis Aylett, mowed down aged 19 at the Somme, or any other lost soldier. Indeed, any insult to their sacrifice comes from those seeking to ban a peace protest whose message they object to.
