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.

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More from @fleetstreetfox

Nov 13
While you’re still in bed, veterans are queuing to take their place on Horseguards for #remembranceday2022 Image
Mirror video supremo @EddieHenryJames and I are with them - wearing the #MissingMedal @thehuwedwards Image
Streams of veterans of all services coming past us, all wearing varieties of medals. Some weighed down with them.

Nuke test vets will be the only guys here with no medal. #missingmedal
Read 10 tweets
Nov 8
Today is important.

At 0857 on November 8, 1957, an RAF Valiant bomber dropped a carefully-prepared device of explosives, uranium-235, plutonium, beryllium and lithium deuteride, on the southern tip of Christmas Island in the South Pacific.

#missingmedal 🧵
The explosives detonated, the beryllium tamper compressed the blast wave and forced it back inwards, and the atoms of uranium and plutonium were split with a force equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT.

Britain had just gone thermonuclear.
There were thousands of British troops on the island, at the most 20 miles from the blast and some around 6 miles.

Others were ok ships at sea, where the top brass were keeping a safer distance on HMS Cossack.

The 500 islanders were huddled under blankets on the beach.
Read 14 tweets
Nov 6
BREAKING: The secretive medal cttee which denies honours to veterans will be reviewed, vows Labour.

@JohnHealey_MP will overhaul the system which forces those who served to fight again for recognition. cc @BWallaceMP @JohnnyMercerUK

#medalforheroes

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/… Image
Hopefully it would mean more honours for rank-and-file servicemen, who get thoroughly overlooked by top brass who are up to their necks in gongs.

"The only time some of them have held a gun is on a grouse shoot," said nuclear veteran John Morris, 85.
This is important because, in govt, Labour could never again claim this medal committee was fit for purpose, not unless it's rebuilt to deliver veterans justice without forcing them into long and damaging battles for the truth.
The psychological and social harm of that is vast.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 3
While @trusskliz tries to convince her party she knows what she's doing, these are the men and women she refuses to meet.

Last week, nuclear veteran families held a reunion, and wrote her some messages. 1/plenty
Julie Soan, whose dad took part in firing the biggest weapon Britain's ever had, Operation Grapple Y, in 1958: "I seek justice for him." Image
David Witcomb, who was on National Service when ordered to Christmas Island after it had been covered by radioactive fallout. "Please, before we are all gone." Image
Read 27 tweets
Sep 22
Well well well well well.

This is worth a thread and no mistake.
The Shadow Attorney General wants to know what the Foreign Office has been using its credit cards for.

It went from annual spending of around £24m suddenly to £35m from September 2021.

Liz Truss was appointed Foreign Sec on Sept 15 2021.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 5
Johnny, @JPAOwen and unnamable others have had their shoulder to the wheel on this for weeks as Boris' time in office ticked down, working against the clock.

These men were brutally mistreated, for decades, while keeping us safe. Story here: mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
Should be said, one jarring point in the letter - these servicemen kept 100s of millions of people safe. But they were following grossly negligent orders.

And no-one kept indigenous people in Australia, Nevada, or Kiritimati safe. They don't get medals. They just get radiation.
Servicemen were knowingly and intentionally exposed. Records were never kept, or 'lost'. Brown people were treated even worse, whether Commonwealth soldiers or locals. And all so the British PM could take tea with the US president and not have to worry about the Russian one.
Read 4 tweets

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