Sorry, Captain Tom But Tomorrow Wasn't A Good Day And Some of That Is On You.

Britain learned again, this week, a lesson it always ignores- that in its have and have-not society- tomorrow is always a good day for some more than others.

This week two years too late, BBC's News Night revealed that Hannah Ingram-Moore, the daughter of the late Captain Tom Moore famed backyard stroller and author of the memoir Tomorrow Will be a Good Day had cast shade on her dad's legacy. The news program contended Hannah received thousands of pounds in personal appearance fees to attend corporate events as a representative of the charity she founded to honour her father's 100-lap walk he undertook to support beleaguered NHS workers during the first Covid lockdown and commemorate his upcoming 100th birthday.

To many, Hannah Ingram-Moore's trousering those appearance fees whilst being paid a handsome salary from the Captain Tom Moore Charitable Foundation was an egregious act of nest feathering from the goodwill of ordinary people.

This wasn't the first questionable decision Hannah Ingram-Moore made as the founder of the Captain Tom Foundation, and like milk too long in the sun, the public has gone off her but not the Captain.

They still love their Zimmer frame hero manufactured in society's imagination from a mixture of treacle nostalgia and ignorance of who were the true heroes of Britain's World War Two generation, the working classes.

Captain Tom's achievement, if you can call what he did- an achievement was he inspired people to take comfort in the status quo during the darkest moments of the pandemic's first year rather than demanding changes be made to society to better their lives.

I believe his intentions were sincere- the way- I believe Margaret Thatcher thought her politics were earnest and correct.

What wasn't sincere was how the news media and politicians in desperate need of a hero, who could legitimise herd immunity and their let's get shops and pubs open strategy latched on to Tom Moore's 100 laps to turn him into the saviour of the nation, like he was Horatio Nelson.

During the spring of 2020, a myth was created and consent manufactured in citizens terrified by COVID that tomorrow could be a good day if society emulated Captain Tom's upper-middle-class Tory can-do spirit. However, as myths were being constructed- about keeping a stiff upper lip whilst bidding farewell on Zoom to the dying; Boris Johnson and much of the politically entitled conservative class partied behind doors kept closed by a compliant news media like it was the last days of disco. Captain Tom was neoliberalism's Potemkin Village, all facade with nothing behind it. But it hid what needed to be concealed from the public- a government's wilful indifference to the lives of ordinary people, corruption that would put Vladimir Putin to shame, and criminal incompetence.

If people are looking for a grift, that was the confidence game of all confidence games.

Britain and the Western World are out of control with economic inequality that rivals the 1930s because it took the mantra Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day as gospel and didn't ask for whom it will be good for? They chose to believe a relatively wealthy Englishman, who experienced the Great Depression as the son of a builder who could afford to own an automobile and treat his family to holidays and restaurant meals.

Harry Leslie Smith experienced- that same Great Depression much differently and like the majority did back then, in a rough and ready penury. Smith's Great Depression was spent unlike Moore's not searching for a shilling hidden inside a Christmas pudding but instead scuttling through the rubbish bins of restaurants, searching for discarded food to keep from starving. Poverty taught Smith like it taught Tom Joad in the novel the Grapes of Wrath that democracy doesn't have a chance in hell of taking root when kids go to bed hungry in their millions. He knew that volunteerism wasn't the answer to society's ills but that an all encompassing social safety net paid for from the wealth of the 1% was how to make an even playing field for all members of society. 

Because I was his son, caregiver and co-conspirator I was with Harry Leslie Smith when in his 90s he barnstormed Britain not once but four times. He did this to warn the nation that our tomorrows under capitalism weren't going to be good but pure misery as long as capitalism remained unhinged from comprehensive wealth taxation.

In his last years Harry Leslie Smith's wants were few: strong coffee, a shandy, a decent pillow to rest his arse on uncomfortable Virgin Rail seats, good company, a decent Eccles cake, and my love and support.

What I know is Harry Leslie Smith would never have wanted a gin with his name on it, a knighthood for keeping Boris Johnson PM, the praise from Piers Morgan, a complimentary British Airway flight and holiday to Barbados during a time when people were urged not to travel, or a bullshit biopic movie glorifying a life spent getting rich. All Harry Leslie Smith wanted and did was use his last years of life to warn the 21st century not to make his past their future.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts because I really need your help this month. August is a bad month with prescriptions that need to be filled and treatments and tests that occur in cities that I must commute to. . Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Even sharing my posts helps the cause. Take Care, John

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash