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What are people's opinions on Peter Snow's "poppy fascism" point of view?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

What's that then? Where can I read about it?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I'm sure Peter Snow will forgive me for paraphrasing him so ...



Interestingly, I sort of feel the same. I started religiously wearing a poppy in my suit a few years ago in view of what people at work and customers might think if I didn't display one. It was really social pressure not my own decision.

I don't think you need to go to church to worship God. You only need to go if you want others to see you.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

It's funny I went to Morrison’s today and while there they announced a two minute silence, me and the wife stood still as well as many others, some carried on shopping.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I can sort of see where Peter Snow is coming from. I imagine that having a famous face makes you an instant target for every good cause to ask you to show your support in front of the cameras, and there's no way anyone can support them all. And when it comes to poppies the past have sacrifice of lives for freedom must mean that those who choose to not wear a poppy are free to do so. I still feel that I should drop a few quid in the box each November and have my poppy seen, and I think the arguments for everyone joining in are sound. But that's a long way from telling anyone that they must do it.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

You do not have to go to church to prove you care or are a good person.

You can choose .. those gentleman and ladies of the past sacrificed their lives for our rights to choose.

I choose to wear a red poppy for a noble war and a white poppy to to show that whilst I revere the sacrifice of one.. I reserve the right to abhor warfare.

I thinki we are at the old crossfire.

The French banned the wearing of all religious allegiances in their schools and public offices.

BA told staff not to wear a crucifix - but allowed the veil and the skull cap and Silkh turban.

Fiona Bruce cannot wear a fave crucific=x pendant .. but others can wear their headscarf...


I think the French are correct.. wear in private .. wear i according tro dress code of various private employers but as a public officcer serving he public.. you have to be seen as "neutral" if you are to deliver an ubiased professional opinion.

But like Gatsomate.. I put cash in the poppy tins as this helps supporrt soldiers injured and killed in conflict. I do not have to wear the Poppy and I sometimes sing a very poignant song - by "Sting" about poppies - double edged, sharp edged and I think perhaps timeless. I am sure you know the one.. from his first solo album

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Embarressingly enough, having served in the Army for 11 years (I left 12 years ago) this year was I made my first trips to the fields of the Somme and Ypres

The first was in May to the Somme valley on my motorbike as I made my way to a meeting in France. I too was struck by the event and key points for me were

Theipval Memorial
The Crater at Ovillers
The Newfoundland memorial
Dulville Woods

The latter was quite possibly one of the most moving experiences of my life

In October I drove my father in law over to Belgium. We visited the graves of his wifes Uncle and My Grandmothers Brother. We also visited the memorial on which his own uncles name is carved, he has no known grave.

The act of rememberance is not glorification of war, it is all about paying tribute to those who bravely fell on the battlefields. It should also be noted that the British Legion relies on the poppy sales to continue their impressive work with ex forces in need. It is the shame of this country that our servicemen and women and their families have to rely on a charity.

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

I joined the British Legion, as with several relatives in the forces a few years ago, I know first hand of the work they still do, because of the numerous conflicts.
This year I made a donation, but did not wear a poppy - it snags in my clothing at work, and I dont wear a suit.
I DO have a poppy car sticker in my car which is there all year round.

I sympathise with Peter Snow - as a business I am always being asked to support some appeal or other, or supply raffle prizes for a good cause.

I choose to support charities which are associated with my youngest sons premature birth, and since you just cannot help them all, I now try to support those who dont have the public attention, more than those that do in an effort to redress the balance.
Lately I have found out more about Riding for the Disabled - it had not occured to me that this was theraputic, and not just enabling them to partake in a wider range of activities.

If ANY of you donate to a charity, I would urge you to do so via GIFT AID.
This enables the charity concerned to claim back the tax you paid on the money when you earned it!
Charities take your donation (which is money you’ve already paid tax on), and then reclaim tax on its ‘gross’ equivalent (its value before tax was deducted) at the basic rate of 22 per cent.

In practice, this means that if you give £10 to charity using Gift Aid, that gift is worth £12.82 to the charity. This is because 22 per cent of £12.82 is £2.82 – your £10 being the difference.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I used to have that perception until I read the war poetry of Wilfrid Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and others.

If it wasn't enough that all of human experience is captured in poetry and prose, that is enough reason for the continuance of teaching English Literature alongside those more "practical" skills in schools.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I think the second half of that is maybe a bit unfair. Lots of people (OK a diminishing number of people!) go to church because they want to be with like-minded people for an hour or so on a Sunday and spend a bit of time somewhere they can "feel" God a bit more than in other surroundings. In today's secular society, I really like going into churces where it's quiet, reverent, and you can think about things. In small villages (like where I live) I think it's also still a social focal point as much as anything else. Like the village pub / post office, something that helps bind the community together.

I can see his point and I don't wear one for long but I can see the sense in all public figures wearing one for a few days leading up to the day. TV is such a powerful medium and people are so much like sheep! I think wearing one for a fortnight dilutes the importane of the actual day each year that has been set aside for this (in my view) extremely important cause but everyone wearing one on the day would, I feel, be a good thing and TV personalities are often far more influential than anyone else.

If you aren't prepared to fight for good, then evil will flourish.

Remembrance day is to pay our respects to those who fought to stop evil; and also to lay down a marker that even after all these years we'd do so again.

It isn't glorifying the war against evil, but it IS advertising the fact that we are prepared to fight it, if needs must. It is, perhaps, Wilfrid Owen's "Next War":

"We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death - for Life; not men - for flags"

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I agree but the question remains, when do you start fighting?

I think it should be as late as possible, but I also think that the rememberence thing tends to make it sooner. That's my concern.

This is also an opinion that I've held - or maybe felt is better - for some 4 decades now, and nothing has tended to make me change my mind.

Maybe being a teenager at the time of the Vietnam war has something to do with it. My opinion isn't now likely to change because the good people around here are telling me that rememberence is supposed to mean something else. I agree with you all.

The most common expression of remberence seems to be: 'remembering those that gave their lives so that we could be free'. In the way that this is presented, those that died are bathed in 'greatness'. This is what I find wrong. The proper typical expression of rememberence should be something much more like: 'war is hell, and should be avoided as much as possible'.

And I ask you all - did remberence help or hinder us to get involved in our devastating Iraq folly?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

If you can convince the potential evil-doer beyond all doubt that you will respond swiftly and ruthlessly, then you might not need to fight at all. Perhaps Remembrance helps with that a little.

But in any case, at least to me, Remembrance is not about the glorification of war, rather it is a simple gesture of respect and of gratitude to all those who died. When I buy a poppy the thought that runs through my mind is simply "thanks"; and if it leaves any other message it is to make the most of the legacy that they died to leave us - a legacy of freedom.

I don't really think anyone now looks back on any recent wars and sees them as a thing of glory, indeed I think it was the Great War that finally put paid to all that dulce et decorum est line of thinking.

But if any doubt remains, for a real treatise on trench life I thoroughly recommend you go and read the novel The First Casualty by - of all people - Ben Elton.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I have never attended a remebrence service where any implications or expressions of heroism, greatness, victoriousness were used; only expessions of sorrow, of loss of friends and comrades, of hope and of the debt that is owed. But ultimately the remembrence means what you want it to mean, it is explained in the heart and the soul, not the head. Perhaps that is why some with a certain predisposition will fail to connect and inevitably misunderstand.

Remembrence neither helped nor hindered our involvement in the Iraq conflict, nor the Gulf war nor the Falklands; political events took their course regardless. But the fact that it didn't prevent these conflicts is not in itself reason to deem it unworthy or not fit for purpose.
The nation should remember, if it doesn't then we may as well just succumb to any tin pot force that rattles a sabre.

I sign off with another quote, one whose origins I regretably forget:

"A nation that fails to respect its own history soon comes to respect the history of another"

I don't know. but it sounds very Benjamin Franklin