Airports in the American Revolution? The surprise might be how many people don’t know that’s wrong

President Trump has stated, or if you accept his account, misread, that the continental army “took over the airports” from the British army during the American Revolutionary War.

This is not a matter of fake news, or one of the now over 10,000 “false or misleading” claims that the Washington Post newspaper has counted. This is just plain stupid news.

The real issue is the number of people who won’t know the difference since although people claim great pride in their history, they actually know little of it and less of a timeline of when events happened.

As a science teacher I had an activity where I gave students a jumbled list of inventions and dates and swiftly found that few students had any idea of the progression of human discoveries. They did not know of a pre-internet time nor could they comprehend what it was like. And as for black and white TV, this was almost inconceivable even though soon TV may be a forgotten memory as will newspapers.

History teachers should be starting their own revolution, rather than telling of previous ones. The next challenge is to properly celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (and convince the doubters that it did actually happen).

Learn what happened and tell the truth always. It shouldn’t be that hard to do.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne

On the Hong Kong front line

In the recent protests by Hong Kong residents against the infamous extradition bill, it was shocking to see Hong Kong police leaders who are British expatriates heading a chain of command where police brutality and teargas were allegedly used by frontline officers.

It is unconscionable that British citizens should apparently play a part in suppressing a civil rights and democracy movement in a foreign state such as China.

The Hong Kong Police Association has called upon Helen Goodman MP and the House of Commons itself to apologise for identifying these gentlemen in parliament, saying, “it is evident that you have no insight nor [sic] understanding into what is happening here in Hong Kong”.

I’ve no doubt that the situation in Hong Kong is difficult, but in this life you choose your sides: democracy; authoritarianism; communism. Our forebears made choices and many of them fought and died for those choices. If British citizens are found to have taken part in police brutality, they should face the full force of the British law, and Britain should make no apology for it.

Daniel Emlyn-Jones
Oxford

When the wind blows

Andrew Woodcock, in his article “Westminster has descended into a deceptive silence” this week, compares the present period of relative calm to being in the eye of a hurricane when the ferocious winds temporarily die down.

He fails to mention, however, that once the eye has passed over, the winds resume but from the other direction.

Since most of the noise and bluster till now has been coming from the right-wing Brexiters can we assume that following the lull all the impetus will be with pro-EU factions? Is it possible that sanity may yet prevail?

Robert Curtis
Birmingham

Have you personally met Nigel Farage, Anna? (Anna Turley: “I won’t stand by as friends and family in the North are lied to by a Brexiteer stockbroker with no thought for their future”.)

I would guess not. He is absolutely honest, and it is very wrong of you to say any other. Have you listened to the callers talking to him from the fishing villages on LBC radio? I would guess not.

Have you been to one of our rallies like the one on Sunday, the Big Vision at the NEC in BIRMINGHAM? In it he said Theresa May had totally always looked after Remainers in Westminster, but no money had been spent on all the outlying towns and villages. Which is correct.

You as a REMAINER cannot deny she has done exactly that. Nigel said he will take back the UK 200 miles fishing Zone that belongs to us and then rejuvenate and help the costal communities get back on their feet.

Anna...YOUR ARTICLE WAS HYSTERICAL, WITHOUT KNOWING THE FACTS about The BREXIT Party and when Nigel is Prime Minister he will put these plans into action that we as the democratic BREXIT PARTY voted for.

Sandra Haywood
Nottinghamshire

open image in gallery

Good news appears to be rationed nowadays, very often we only hear of embarrassing politicians, wanton extremism, or greedy despots.

Well, you can imagine how I cheered up on Friday when I heard that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon had been found guilty of contempt charges at the Old Bailey. Time for a glass of sherry then.

Mindful of the advice on consuming alcohol I poured myself a second. However, I had only just consumed this when, on social media, I saw the video of a traffic warden sticking a parking ticket on a double-decker bus parked near the earlier mentioned court of law. Apparently this was illegally parked by followers of Yaxley-Lennon. Sherry bottle now empty!

I strongly suggest we need good news like this every Friday afternoon, imagine the feeling of joviality across the country, as we commence a relaxing weekend.

Robert Boston
Kent