Peter Rhodes on bureaucrats, battles and the value of a little bronze cross

When Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asked the Civil Service to redefine extremism, Sir Humphrey (of Yes, Prime Minister) would have been proud of them. The bureaucrats' solution was, of course, more bureaucracy. Under their plan, just about anything remotely offensive would be classified as extremism including men who hate women, conspiracy theorists and anyone who believes Britain has two-tier policing. So, about half the population?

Thankfully, Cooper has slapped down her minions and will focus on tackling the extreme Right, religious fanaticism and, in the wake of the Southport carnage, “a cohort of loners.” It may look like a small victory for common sense but bureaucrats, once slapped down, have a habit of popping up again.

Oh, the shame, the embarrassment, the ignominy. A new British submarine intended to be named HMS Agincourt in honour of the English victory over France in 1415, is to be called the politically neutral HMS Achilles instead for fear, it is alleged, of offending the French.

Frankly, I doubt if any French feathers would have been ruffled. I've been to the Agincourt museum in northern France. It's a fine place but I came away thinking that, if this were a British museum to the battle, it would be much bigger. We Brits tend to bang on about our victories over the French: Agincourt, Crecy, Waterloo and the rest.

But if we were always beating our Gallic cousins, how come France, which used to be part-owned by England, is now owned entirely by the French? It's because they won a few fights against us: the Battle of Castillon, the Siege of Toulon, the Battle of Sluys and others we never teach our kids about.

Meanwhile, although some may harrumph at HMS Agincourt becoming Achilles, a learned reader points out that in the Trojan Wars, Achilles slew Paris.