Latest news with #HMSAgincourt
The Guardian
05-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
How about HMS Backpedal for the new Royal Navy submarine?
Never mind the possibility of offending the French by naming a submarine HMS Agincourt, Emma Brockes (Digested week, 31 January). What is often conveniently forgotten is that Agincourt (1415) was a strictly English victory. Scotland was on the other side, allied with France. Naming a vessel of the British Royal Navy after a defeat for a significant part of Britain seems odd, to say the least. If the Royal Navy was minded to name a vessel Agincourt, perhaps it could restore the balance by calling another one Castillon, the 1453 Auld Alliance rout of a much larger English force that brought an end at last to the hundred years war. Curiously absent from the history syllabus in my English MitchellEdinburgh The Royal Navy could probably power HMS Agincourt with the furious backpedalling of anti-woke Tory MPs after it was revealed that King Charles, rather than the Labour government, had instigated the name change to Rushton Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Digested week: Caroline Kennedy swoops on RFK Jr with talons out
'Trying not to upset the French' could be a chapter in a Debrett's guide to etiquette and manners, one that may have been taken to heart by the government this week with its decision to change the name of a new submarine. The Astute-class attack vessel is still being built, but on Sunday night, the Royal Navy announced that what was to become HMS Agincourt would, instead, be given the more Franco-friendly name of HMS Achilles. Up pops Grant Shapps, the former Conservative defence secretary, to dust off his opportunism and accuse the navy of bending to Labourite 'woke nonsense'. It's just like riding a bike! The naming of ships in this country is famously fraught after the saga of Boaty McBoatface, one of those jokes that was supposed to advertise the country's jaunty irreverence and ended up being flogged into tiresome half wittedness. But back to the submarine formerly known as Agincourt. The government insists the vessel hasn't been renamed because it might make the French feel bad, but rather to pay tribute to a previous ship of the same name that received 'battle honours' during the second world war. This would be more credible if Achilles had been the first idea out of the gate and not the substitution for a name that honoured the defeat of the French by Henry V at Agincourt in 1415. Times Radio, meanwhile, managed to whistle up an angry former Royal Navy commander, Chris Parry, who had the courtesy to deliver exactly what they were looking for and call the renaming a 'craven and contemptible surrender to ideology being pushed by the government'. We must be grateful no one put in a call to the British Legion. (The Daily Express probably did. I can't bring myself to look.) It was Kennedy v Kennedy in the US Senate this week at the confirmation hearing for the presumptive health secretary and anti-vaxxer, Robert F Kennedy Jr. The son of RFK came up against perhaps the only person in the US with greater surname capital than his own – Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of JFK, which makes her assuredly an outranking FK – who released a video in which she read out a statement enumerating all the ways in which her first cousin was a terrible person who was unfit for office. Caroline Kennedy wasn't messing around. Like a playful assassin, she opened gently, referring to RFK Jnr as 'Bobby' and contextualising him fondly as one of 'a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together'. That tone soon evaporated. Bobby, said Caroline, was 'dangerous and wilfully misinformed' on vaccines, lacking in any relevant medical or government experience, and wholly unsuited to the job of health secretary. And this was just the warm up. Reminding us that the Kennedys didn't accumulate their wealth and influence via charm alone, Caroline then flatly informed the Senate panel and the American public that her cousin was a 'predator' who, 'no surprise', keeps birds of prey and – who saw this detail coming? – once 'put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed his hawks'. We look forward to the Republican-run Senate confirming RFK Jr to take his rightful place alongside Kristi Noem, the freshly confirmed homeland security secretary, who admitted in her recent memoir to having shot her dog. To the theatre, to see the acclaimed adaptation of Annie Ernaux's book of auto-fiction, The Years. The five women in the cast are fantastic, the staging is perfect, and – bonus drama – the 'graphic scenes' of abortion that have been knocking out audience members intermittently since the play opened, caused someone in the audience to faint. The show stopped for 10 minutes. As the action resumed, I found myself wondering if it was a man or a woman who'd keeled over. The scene was graphic to the extent that fake blood poured down the character's legs and the dialogue painted an even grimmer and more upsetting picture. Still – and sorry to be gross – the experience of having your bathroom turning into a scene from Straw Dogs is pretty familiar to most women I know, especially if they're approaching menopause. I assume it was a man who passed out. Anyway on with the play, in which there were cigarettes and existentialism and of course, blood, very much in line with the French idea of womanhood as hard work and less aligned perhaps with the British fondness for defensive flippancy. As we left the theatre, an older British lady in front of us laughed and remarked to her companion: 'I think we'll need some ice-cream after that.' Well said, madam. Menopausal ladies are big business at the moment. After Davina McCall's and Jen Gunter's bestselling menopause books, comes Dare I Say It, a menopause memoir by movie star Naomi Watts, and a new 'viral' menopause workout by Jennifer Aniston. Aniston's partnership with a fitness brand called Pvolve – no, I don't get it, either – offers a rigorous programme of low-impact exercise designed for middle-aged women. Fine, lovely, it's nice to see a historically ignored demographic get our moment of rigorous commercial exploitation. The upside to the Pvolve programme is that you don't have to leave your house to do it. The downside is that it involves buying a load of Pvolve-branded gear – an exercise ball, a 'heavy ankle board', 'glider discs' – to gather dust in your house when, two weeks into the programme, you understand you are not turning into Jennifer Aniston and give up. An impact of the pandemic on very young children is that, according to a survey of 1,000 teachers released this week, many of those who started reception last year spoke with vaguely American accents from too much screen time and were 'unable to climb a staircase'. Intellectually, I understand the concerns this might raise, but from experience it all looks normal to me. When my own tiny three-year-olds started the equivalent of reception, they spoke with American accents, struggled with stairs because we didn't have any, and one of them was still in pull-ups. Somewhere in the intervening seven years we figured it out.
Telegraph
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The French navy is full of ships named after men who beat us. Don't rename HMS Agincourt
'Vive notre ami l'ennemi', wrote a patriotic French songwriter sarcastically in the 1820s, after peace had returned and multitudes of British tourists again flocked to Paris. No need to ask who the friendly enemy was. For more than two centuries we have been peaceful neighbours and indeed allies in three major and a few minor wars. We have had two 'ententes cordiales' – one was clearly not enough – and now have a th century visitor to London got annoyed after his cab drove him from Waterloo Station via Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Square to the Waterloo Hotel: he gave the cabby a good thrashing. Perhaps someone in Whitehall received a verbal thrashing from our French friends when they discovered that the latest Astute Class submarine was to be named HMS Agincourt , adding insult to the injury of the Aukus pact which so upset M Macron. Or could it be that the French didn't care what we called the submarine, and that the person in Whitehall was simply The French are not so meek. After all, their navy's glorious traditions are based above all on its battles against perfidious Albion. At least six of its major warships today bear the names of men who fought against us, and sometimes fought dirty. The frigate Surcouf is named after Robert Surcouf, a highly successful slave trader (whoops!) and privateer who made a fortune attacking British merchantmen. The submarine Duguay-Trouin honours René Trouin, Sieur du Gué, another privateer and occasional slave trader who preyed successfully on English and Scottish merchantmen and captured several Royal Navy warships, for which he was ennobled and rose to be an admiral. The submarine Suffren honours Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez, bailli de Suffren (the French navy, with its notably aristocratic tradition, has many heroes with splendid names). He fought the British to a standstill in the Indian Ocean. The frigate La Fayette is named after the famous Marie-Joseph Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, who helped the Americans rebel in 1776. The submarine Tourville commemorates Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, Comte de Tourville, who inflicted a serious defeat at Beachy Head in 1690, when he captured or sank seven ships. The destroyer Forbin recalls Claude, comte de Forbin-Gardanne, who sank or captured many British ships, and also helped Bonny Prince Charlie to invade in 1745. The frigate Chevalier Paul honours Jean-Paul de Saumeur, whose many exploits include sinking a British ship that had failed to salute the French flag (nearly all the crew drowned). Until it retired recently, the submarine Casabianca commemorated Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca, a French Revolution politician and later naval officer under Napoleon, killed by Nelson's fleet at the Battle of the Nile when his ship blew up. His young son, who also died, was the hero of the poem that begins 'The boy stood on the burning deck …' Given the pride shown by 'la Royale' in its glorious history of bashing the Brits and being bashed in return, I would be surprised if it had been upset by our calling a submarine Agincourt . After all, we already have
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The French navy is full of ships named after men who beat us. Don't rename HMS Agincourt
'Vive notre ami l'ennemi', wrote a patriotic French songwriter sarcastically in the 1820s, after peace had returned and multitudes of British tourists again flocked to Paris. No need to ask who the friendly enemy was. For more than two centuries we have been peaceful neighbours and indeed allies in three major and a few minor wars. We have had two 'ententes cordiales' – one was clearly not enough – and now have a close defence relationship. Yet there has always remained a certain sensitivity on both sides of the Channel. One highly-strung 19th century visitor to London got annoyed after his cab drove him from Waterloo Station via Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Square to the Waterloo Hotel: he gave the cabby a good thrashing. Perhaps someone in Whitehall received a verbal thrashing from our French friends when they discovered that the latest Astute Class submarine was to be named HMS Agincourt, adding insult to the injury of the Aukus pact which so upset M Macron. Or could it be that the French didn't care what we called the submarine, and that the person in Whitehall was simply showing a reflex desire to apologise? The French are not so meek. After all, their navy's glorious traditions are based above all on its battles against perfidious Albion. At least six of its major warships today bear the names of men who fought against us, and sometimes fought dirty. The frigate Surcouf is named after Robert Surcouf, a highly successful slave trader (whoops!) and privateer who made a fortune attacking British merchantmen. The submarine Duguay-Trouin honours René Trouin, Sieur du Gué, another privateer and occasional slave trader who preyed successfully on English and Scottish merchantmen and captured several Royal Navy warships, for which he was ennobled and rose to be an admiral. The submarine Suffren honours Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez, bailli de Suffren (the French navy, with its notably aristocratic tradition, has many heroes with splendid names). He fought the British to a standstill in the Indian Ocean. The frigate La Fayette is named after the famous Marie-Joseph Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, who helped the Americans rebel in 1776. The submarine Tourville commemorates Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, Comte de Tourville, who inflicted a serious defeat at Beachy Head in 1690, when he captured or sank seven ships. The destroyer Forbin recalls Claude, comte de Forbin-Gardanne, who sank or captured many British ships, and also helped Bonny Prince Charlie to invade in 1745. The frigate Chevalier Paul honours Jean-Paul de Saumeur, whose many exploits include sinking a British ship that had failed to salute the French flag (nearly all the crew drowned). Until it retired recently, the submarine Casabianca commemorated Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca, a French Revolution politician and later naval officer under Napoleon, killed by Nelson's fleet at the Battle of the Nile when his ship blew up. His young son, who also died, was the hero of the poem that begins 'The boy stood on the burning deck …' Given the pride shown by 'la Royale' in its glorious history of bashing the Brits and being bashed in return, I would be surprised if it had been upset by our calling a submarine Agincourt. After all, we already have HMS Iron Duke. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
The Guardian
28-01-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Will Boris Johnson keep his bulldozer promise on a third runway at Heathrow?
Could there be a silver lining to the building of a third runway at Heathrow (Reeves: third Heathrow runway would be hard decision but good for growth, 26 January)? I remember Boris Johnson promising to lie down in front of the bulldozers to stop McMannersTrimdon Grange, County Durham Re the UK's love of instant coffee (Pass notes, 27 January), the Germans have the best word for weak, nasty coffee or coffee substitute: Muckefuck. I eagerly await the day when high-street coffee shops add this to their ever‑expanding drinks RobbinsKnowle, West Midlands Unlike Zoe Williams (28 January), I am always delighted to be offered a seat on public transport, not because I need it necessarily, but because it heartens me to see people showing kindness, consideration and care for others. Please don't CobleyLewes, East Sussex It appears that the real threat to the US was not deep state after all, but DeepSeek ('Sputnik moment': $1tn wiped off US stocks after Chinese firm unveils AI chatbot, 28 January).Philip ClarkeEast Bridgford, Nottinghamshire Is the government's decision to change the name of the Royal Navy's latest submarine from HMS Agincourt to HMS Achilles a heel-jerk reaction (No 10 defends decision to change name of HMS Agincourt submarine, 27 January)?Chris ArrowsmithCam, Gloucestershire At least they didn't rename her ' DavenportKenley, London Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
