Remeberance Sunday

The sacrifice given by so many, so that our values and beliefs can endure and survive was so clear today in the Service I attended in Holywell. It is always with a sense of shock that I listen to the sheer numbers of those that sacrified their lives in both the first and second world wars, for our freedoms. Those sacrifices go on today, and I remember and salute both the injured and those who have laid down their lives for us.

Supporting jobs

Today it was great to see David Cameron in Holywell, there was real excitement that he was coming to talk to local businesses about how they could support jobs in Flintshire and how the Welsh Conservatives would support them. This is the third time that David Cameron has been in Flintshire and the second time this year. In May he spoke to 40 students from the Mold Alun school, today it was local businesses which spanned all sectors from manufacturing to tourism, construction to accountancy. David Cameron had visited Airbus in Broughton, but went on to talk to local businesses from Holywell, Mold, Flint and Deeside. What was so important about this visit was the fact that as well as visiting Airbus, he also took the time to meet people from all sectors of the economy, and to see how we can keep Flintshire working.

Afghanistan

The huge sacrifice made by Soldiers in Afghanistan continues, I heard the following passage on the Radio yesterday, it stopped me in my tracks. Having heard the email earlier in the week written by the Welsh Guardsman Rupert Thorneloe talking about the shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan the words of Siegfried Sasson seemed particularly relevant. The £121 million refurbishment of the Ministry of Defence's offices shows just how wrong this Government's priorities have been.

By SIEGFRIED SASSOON

I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

Siegfried L. Sassoon, July 1917