Brown gets D-Day wrong, again!

Gordon Brown, bless him, seems to keep making mistakes when it comes to matters military.

He made a bit of a blunder trying to keep the Gurkhas out of Britain, so people made a fuss and he changed his mind.

He decided there was no need to do anything for the 65th Anniversary of D-Day, because he didn't realise there might be some old soldiers who thought it was important to remember their ten thousand or so friends and comrades-in-arms who died or were injured on the beaches of Normandy. Quite a few people made a fuss, so Mr Brown changed his mind and decided he'd like to go too - but he seems to have forgotten somebody a bit more important than him.

He managed to forget to make sure the Queen was invited to France for 6th June.

Mrs R thinks Mr Brown should know a bit about protocol. He should know that the Queen cannot simply invite herself to a foreign country - it isn't what heads of state do. In the old days a King, Queen, or even a Prince, who wandered into another country without first being asked was called an invader, even if they were in their eighties.

Mr Sarkozy, who's Hungarian-French, can't see what all the fuss is about either. He seems to think the commemoration should be a mainly French-American affair - perhaps he wants to meet up with his pal Mr Obama.

Maybe these important chaps rely on Hollywood for their history lessons, so think America won all the battles all on its' own, but fortunately there are plenty of French people, and plenty of British people who know what really happened - if not from our own memories it'll be from tales told by those who were there - and we won't forget, nor will we get it wrong.

We know that there are 27 War Cemeteries in Normandy, the final resting place of 17,769 British, 9,386 Americans, 5,002 Canadians and 650 Poles and over 77,000 Germans. We know that others others died at sea or as a result of air battles.

We know that our Queen (No230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor) wore her ATS uniform with pride during WWII and has, if anything, more right to be on the Normandy Beaches on 6th June 2009 these two younger men who appear to have no sense of either history or protocol.

Simon Weston, the Falklands War veteran said in the Mail

Mr Brown just seems to miss the point when it comes to the military, and anything to do with veterans seems to be a grudging afterthought.'

Mrs R tends to agree. She also sometimes wonders if Mr Brown can get anything right!