Can you connect these events? Prince Harry visits Ukraine. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff, is discovered hanging around Peking talking to various figures in the hideous Chinese tyranny. And the last remnant of Britain’s steel industry can only be saved by Parliament.

I can. But it is the threat to our surviving blast furnaces in Scunthorpe which is the most important. Strong independent countries have big steel industries. They are the sinews of a highly-industrialised nation, one able to build its own defences. We had plenty of such sinews once. They transformed our industrial power into world power and helped to keep us free and prosperous.

Now we have no such sinews. We buy them from someone else. It was revealed last week that British warships now being built are expected to contain large amounts of steel made by France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Spain.

If such countries can maintain modern steel industries, why can’t we? I’d say for two main reasons.

The first is we fell idiotically for the promises of globalism. This preaches that it doesn’t matter if you ditch proper industry.

The other is we bowed down before the new religion of Warmism. We let a dodgy set of beliefs about global warming rush us into a series of rash choices which we will have centuries to regret.

A real steel industry without coal is pretty much impossible. How China must laugh at us, as it runs a mighty industrial revolution on its huge coal stocks and builds two new coal-fired power stations almost weekly, as we blow ours up.

A worker at the Marcegaglia Steel meltshop. The last remnant of Britain’s steel industry can only be saved by Parliament

Prince Harry on his surprise visit to Ukraine. But, writes Peter Hitchens, there is nothing patriotic about the conflict

Mind the doors... 

The smart livery of trains on London’s new Elizabeth Line is marred by the painting of what look like shark’s teeth on the edges of its sliding doors. This happens on several other rail lines, here and abroad. But why the menacing jaws? 

Do they really make passengers less likely to obstruct those closing doors? I’d love to have seen the research being done, if so. Imagine it, if you can. 

This does not just make us silly. It makes us weak. Why do we keep sending officials to Peking? It can hardly be to threaten the People’s Republic with our vanished naval might or the awesome size of our national debts. 

And why is Prince Harry in Ukraine and why has his father, the King, gravely violated royal neutrality by cheering on what is, at the very least, the most stupid and counter-productive war since the 2003 Iraq disaster?

There is nothing patriotic about the Ukraine conflict. Britain has no national interest in sustaining or prolonging this crazy, murderous and avoidable brawl, a proxy war between the USA and Russia.

Even the Americans, who strove so hard for so long to provoke a conflict in the region, have grown bored with it. Yet we are spending tax money on keeping it going. This is out of habit, because we have been so used to copying US foreign policies that we do not know how to stop, even when the Americans have abandoned them.

True patriotism would lie in saving our power to defend ourselves. But will we be seeing Charles or Harry denouncing the globalist and Net Zero policies which are turning us into an impoverished weakling? No, that will never happen. So goodbye blast furnaces.

Letby police aren’t as shy and retiring as they claim

More on shy and retiring Cheshire Police, who claim to stand nobly above the fray in the controversy on Lucy Letby’s conviction.

In March 2024, when Ms Letby was still seeking permission to appeal against her conviction, a ‘Communicators’ Course’ was held for Police press officers in a pleasant country house hotel in Lincolnshire.

Among the attractions offered was an appearance by Shelley Smith, ‘Senior Communications Officer’ for Cheshire Constabulary and ‘Communications Lead’ for Operation Hummingbird, the police investigation of Ms Letby.

I don’t know who wrote this, but could it have got into the programme without police approval? It said of Ms Smith: ‘Within months of starting with the force she hit the ground running, helping to co-ordinate the comms response to the horrific murder of Garry Newlove in Warrington and the media scrutiny that followed. 

During her time in the force’s press office Shelley has planned, co-ordinated and delivered communications strategies for multiple murders, serious sexual offences, the force’s first corporate manslaughter prosecution and multiagency working to tackle serious and organised crime.’ Is this the way the police talk in private about crime now? Is it really the way we want police forces to think about the crimes they investigate? This looks to me more like soap opera.

Lucy Letby was jailed for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital

Then it adds that Ms Smith ‘was asked to take up a full-time secondment working closely alongside the investigation team developing, implementing and leading on the communications strategy – something that has never been done in Cheshire before. 

This encompassed not only media management and stakeholder engagement but detailed logistics/planning pre-trial and at court and, most importantly, providing bespoke media advice and support to the 13 individual families at the heart of this tragic case – under the intense spotlight of the world’s media, unbelievable scrutiny from the public and with the parents of the babies firmly at the forefront of her mind.’

What do they mean by ‘strategy’? Aren’t police supposed to gather evidence without fear or favour? Aren’t prosecutors supposed to decide if there is a case to answer? Isn’t the jury supposed to decide guilt? I will leave readers to form their own views about the attitude this reveals towards impartial justice and towards the families of the babies allegedly killed or harmed by Ms Letby.

Hope for boys truly has gone for a Burton

Toby Jones as Philip Burton

Fascinating to see how few discussions of the new film Mr Burton, in which Toby Jones plays the great actor Richard Burton’s inspirational teacher, mention that the school involved was academically selective, a grammar school in fact.

Every single such school in Wales (which was once blessed with many such) was destroyed in a frenzy of egalitarian spite.

The story would now be impossible, and boys of Burton’s talent in 2025 go on to dreary unfulfilled lives because of one of the stupidest decisions ever taken by this country’s politicians. Yet nobody even considers reversing it.