EU Referendum


Media: embarrassingly amateur


27/02/2015



000a Mail-026 Tank.jpg

If one wonders just how naff the Daily Mail can become, one just needs to visit the headline of their piece on the Ukip spring conference in Margate. There, we are told, the Ukipites were "gatecrashed" by "NAZI dancing troupe goose-stepping through Margate in front of a Second World War tank".

Notwithstanding any other errors, the vehicle in question is not a tank – it is an Abbot FV433 self-propelled gun. And it is not of World War II vintage. It was actually introduced into British Army service in 1965. I remember it well as, about that time, I was nearly flattened by one when it came hurtling down a track on which we had pitched our tent (don't ask).

The identity of the vehicle may be a nerdy point, but details matter - not that Ukip would know the difference. But if you are to have any credibility at all, you get them right.