The Peace PropagandistsV. The War-makers

You can't make it up! 

After generations of commemorating war with 2-minute silences and Cenotaph Sundays and red poppy sellers, army recruitment seminars and even military cadet forces, the war-mongers now criticise the Peace Pledge Union of indoctrinating schoolchildren when it announced a school campaign.

 Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan, criticised the sale of white poppies in schools as “misguided”. He told The Sunday Telegraph: "They should not be indoctrinating children with a left wing political agenda.”

Symon Hill, co-ordinator at the PPU said, “The key thing we get across is that white poppies represent all victims of all wars, civilians, ambulance drivers, and those who fought for a different country. We are a pacifist organisation, we make no apology for that. We share a commitment for working for peace, rejecting militarism and attempts to glamorise war.” He said: “The last thing we want to do is indoctrinate children or impose our views on them. We want young people to have the chance to consider a range of views.”

Col Richard Kemp said that state schools should not be spending taxpayer money on promoting white poppies to pupils. “If teachers are getting involved in school time or using their professional position, paid for by our taxes, to indoctrinate children in this movement, that is wrong,” the ex-army chief said. He added: “The red poppy, Remembrance Sunday and everything around it - these are institutions of the state and that is our tradition. It is right that schools should sell red poppies and take part in this.