THE British Army, now at its lowest fighting strength since the Napoleonic Wars, is having a recruitment drive … for a Climate Change and Sustainability Officer. This is because the Government sees climate change ‘as one of the greatest threats to both UK and global security and prosperity’. Whoever gets the £36,530-a-year post will have to develop the Army’s thinking on ‘decarbonisation, climate adaptation, energy transition, and enabling activities’.
Yes, it’s yet another bonkers Civil Service made-up job, funded by the taxpayer and probably dreamed up by some woke and woeful sub-committee in the Ministry of Defence that’s in thrall to Mad Ed’s Nut Zero insanity. Hopefully the Climate Change and Sustainability Officer idea will be given its marching orders by someone with a bit of sense, but don’t hold your breath.
It makes you wonder how such an appointment would have been received when Britain faced a real threat to its security – invasion by Germany. To find out, let’s lighten the mood and cross over to the church hall in Walmington-on-Sea in August 1940, where the Home Guard platoon are gathering for evening parade …
Captain Mainwaring: ‘Right, Wilson, call the men to attention.’
Sergeant Wilson: ‘Now if you chaps wouldn’t mind awfully falling in, please …’
Mainwaring: ‘There’s one too many!’
Wilson: ‘One too many, sir?’
Mainwaring: ‘Look, him on the end. It’s that awful Warden Hodges fellow! Hodges, what are you doing on my parade? Get out of here at once!’
Warden Hodges: ‘Keep your hair on, Napoleon. I’m here officially. I’ve been sent in my new capacity as the platoon’s CCSO. Here, it says so on this armband.’
Mainwaring: ‘Ah, let’s see – CCSO. So you’re a Central Command Sanitary Orderly now, are you? Well, I suppose that suits your talents admirably. Get outside and start cleaning the latrines.’
Hodges: ‘No, Mainwaring – CCSO stands for Climate Change and Sustainability Officer.’
Mainwaring: ‘Climate Change and Sustainability? What the devil are you talking about?’
Hodges: ‘You’re well behind the times, aren’t you, Napoleon? Some boffins amid the powers-that-be are worried about global warming due to the amount of smoke being generated by the war. I mean, Dunkirk a couple of months ago was a major atmospheric pollution event and those exhaust trails being left by our Spitfires and Hurricanes at the moment aren’t helping things.’
Mainwaring: ‘But that small band of heroic pilots are defending our island from invasion. They’re doing an amazing job. Only the other day, Churchill said: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.’
Hodges: ‘Well they’re a few too many from a climate change point of view. If the Battle of Britain goes on much longer, we’ll be melting the polar ice caps.’
Mainwaring: ‘Polar ice caps?’
Hodges: ‘Don’t you know anything, Napoleon? If the ice caps melt, sea levels will rise and Walmington-on-Sea promenade will be under water, making it easier for the Germans to land here.’
Private Frazer: ‘We’re doomed!’
Private Pike: ‘No we’re not! The helter-skelter on the prom will still be above water, sir! I could get on top of it and see off the Jerries if you’ll let me have the platoon tommy gun.’
Mainwaring: ‘How will you get to the helter-skelter if everywhere is flooded?’
Pike: ‘I’ve got my water wings. Mum makes me wear them when I go to the swimming baths.’
Wilson: ‘But wouldn’t the tommy gun get wet, Frank?’
Pike: ‘I’d do the backstroke, Uncle Arthur.’
Private Walker: ‘I’ve got a better idea, Pikey. Private Frazer’s an undertaker. We could convert one of his coffins into a canoe.’
Pike: ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t fancy sailing in a coffin, Joe! Please can I have the tommy gun, Mr Mainwaring?’
Mainwaring: ‘That’s enough, Pike. Stupid boy. Now then, Hodges, on what authority are you here, disrupting vital military manoeuvres? The Germans could be at our throats any minute and you’re wittering on with this nonsense.’
Hodges: ‘My orders are to mitigate the platoon’s impact on the environment and ensure everything is sustainable.’
Wilson: ‘Sustainable? You don’t seem to have noticed that we’re not really in the business of sustaining things, old chap. Rather the opposite. How do we sustain a hand grenade once it’s exploded? Look for the pieces and put it back together again? I’m afraid you’re way off beam.’
Mainwaring: ‘Good point, Wilson. I was just going to say that myself.’
Private Godfrey: ‘Sir, my sister Dolly might be able to help. Her upside-down cakes are very sustainable. They’ll keep for six months if you wrap them in greaseproof paper and put them in an airtight tin.’
Mainwaring: ‘Yes, thank you Godfrey. Now look here, Hodges, all this is so much mumbo-jumbo. It sounds suspiciously like nancy-boy defeatist talk to me. There’s a war on and war’s a dirty business, so there’s bound to be a bit of muck flying around.’
Hodges: ‘It’s more than a bit of muck, Napoleon – the world is heating up.’
Lance Corporal Jones: ‘Permission to speak, sir!’
Mainwaring: ‘Oh, very well.’
Jones: ‘I know all about heat, sir. It was hot in the Sudan, I can tell you. Even the Fuzzy-Wuzzies tried to keep cool by sheltering under the acacia trees. General Kitchener told us to sneak up behind them while they were having a kip in the shade and give ’em a taste of cold steel. Well the steel wasn’t cold, what with the heat and all, but it worked, sir – they did not like it up ’em. They did not like it up ’em one bit. By the way, sir, I’ve got that nice cut of brisket for you back in the shop. Tell Mrs Mainwaring it’d go lovely with a few parsnips and onions.’
Mainwaring: ‘Yes, very well, Jones. Right, Hodges, I’ve had enough of your drivel – you’re dismissed! Lance Corporal Jones, fix your bayonet and escort him off the premises.’
Hodges: ‘Hang on Napoleon, you can’t do that! I protest! Global warming is your worst enemy – worse than Hitler!’
Mainwaring: ‘Oh, get him out of here, Jones.’
Jones: ‘Now then, Mr Hodges, come along quietly now. Here’s the door. Off you go now. But before you do, I’ll give you a little bit of advice about your so-called climate change …’
Hodges: ‘What’s that then?’
Jones: ‘Don’t panic.’
