Rhodes on mud, blood and the problem posed by the single word 'knowingly'

I've just read Somme Mud, Private Edward Lynch's acclaimed account of serving in an Australian infantry unit during the First World War. It is shocking on many levels, not least in the cruel and casual racism displayed by Lynch and his mates. But it is also a reminder of how little warfare has changed.

Today's weapons may be smarter than a Lee-Enfield rifle but soldiering is still essentially about terrified young men eye-deep in hell in their trenches, waiting for death or glory.

Somme Mud also reminds us of the sheer rage felt by ordinary people at the death, damage and loss inflicted on millions of innocents by a tiny clique of power-mad warmongers. Someone must pay for all this.

Today, we hear demands to “make Russia pay” for the desecration of Ukraine. But Edward Lynch's war ended with Germany humiliated and bankrupted by massive reparations which led directly to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War. If either side in this Ukrainian blood bath is humiliated, the stage will be set for another war.

There is a chance that the local-council elections on May 5 will be so traumatic for the Tories that MPs will pass a vote of no confidence and Boris Johnson will be out of Downing Street, making the inquiry into his alleged lying unnecessary. Which would doubtless be a great relief to his enemies.

For while it's easy to prove someone has misled Parliament, how can you prove they did it knowingly? Keir Starmer may have misled the Commons last week when, on the strength of conflated tittle-tattle, he seemed to accuse the PM of rubbishing the heroic work of BBC correspondents in Ukraine. But did Starmer do it knowingly? Or was he merely repeating a garbled account from one of his aides? And if Johnson offers the same defence, how could anyone disprove it?

The Co-op reports that six million people in the UK eat a yoghurt every day, but research shows half are thrown away in unopened packs, mainly because they aren't used in time. The Co-op is dropping “use by” dates, seemingly endorsing another supermarket chain's plea for customers to apply “the sniff test”. Nice idea but with millions of Covid sufferers unable to smell or taste anything, the timing could be better.