At the #remembranceday2022 event at the Cenotaph tomorrow, you will see a small band of veterans wearing these black and yellow badges.
It is the #MissingMedal.
It is the medal that should have been given to those who delivered the nuclear deterrent in 1952.
Instead, Churchill gave honours to the chief scientist and top brass.
It should have been awarded after Operation Grapple X, 65 years ago this month, in 1957 when they produced Britain’s first H-bomb.
But it was done in a hurry, safety concerns out the window, before a global testing ban came in. A little too embarrassing.
It could have been done in 1958 with Grapple Y, the biggest weapon we ever fired, and which bought us the Special Relationship with the US.
But we were still burning plutonium in the Outback to see what the wind did with it, so it wasn’t quite the time.
Perhaps they could have done it in 1962, when British troops were ordered back to the Pacific to help Kennedy set off 38 megatons of various devices over two and a bit months, to show the Soviets who was boss.
But no.
When they finished in Australia, in 1963?
When they ‘cleaned up’ Christmas Island in 1967?
In the early 80s when veterans on three continents, came forward to say they had cancer, their wives miscarried, their babies were sick or dead?
Nope. Nuh-uh. Nooo.
Perhaps they could have done it on the 50th anniversary in 2002, when @dailymirror revealed a major statistical investigation into veterans and grandchildren which showed three generations were suffering inexplicable illness.
Churchill and every PM since had very good reason to award a medal to these men. They never did.
They all had reason to award war pensions by automatic right, but instead told the veterans to prove they’d been irradiated.
They could all have said sorry.
Last week I reported how, since 1952, the MoD has had an archive of blood and urine records which shows the veterans were irradiated.
They are refused the right we all have to see their own medical records. One was even told that it could harm his mental health.
In the three days since I asked @RishiSunak to comment on whether he stood by his August pledge of support for a criminal investigation into the tests - bearing in mind that withholding medical information is a crime - word has come there none.
No10 would add nothing to the MoD blanket denials. The only time the press office was energised into adding more was when @Keir_Starmer said it was an insult, and they briefed that it was untrue to say Sunak had anything but respect for veterans.
Sunak has observed the Armistice Day silence. He has authorised quotes for #remembranceday2022 release tomorrow. He has been pictured buying poppies.
Yet he maintains the 70 year silence about what happened to the test veterans and their #nukedblood.
Which is why tomorrow survivors of those tests and their families will march wearing the #MissingMedal. It’s why I’m honoured to be wearing mine. It’s why MPs of all parties will be wearing theirs.
So if you anyone says “what’s that black and yellow badge for?”, let them know.
You can buy your own #MissingMedal here: labrats.international/whataretheblac… cc @thehuwedwards @BBCBreaking @markaustintv @skynews
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