This week, the story of Ukrainian men trying to leave to avoid conscription was given airtime on the BBC.

And the situation is similar in Russia.

At least in Ukraine the fight is for the survival of the country, not to satisfy the vanity of a psychopath.

But - one of my students asked me, would I fight for my own country? Notwithstanding the fact that I am now 49 and have health issues (and steel plates in one shoulder) I have to answer like this:

In 1939, the answer would have been, "yes, and with pride. I would rather die fighting the Nazis than live to experience for myself their rule. And where the hell are the Americans in ll this? Bunch of self surviving wimps who will not join the war." (Famously they were forced in after Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941, followed by Hitler, being the mad man he was, declaring war on America when he need not have).

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But today? Well, much as I hate to feel this way, let alone express this view, but in the name of openness and honesty, as well as having the sense of principle that is do, the only honest, truthful answer would be, absolutely, irrevocably no. Which begs the question, how so?

Now this can of worms is well and truly opened and as I plan my permanent withdrawl from the UK, I could quite honestly fill a side of A4 with my reasons. But key among these would surely be...

• Law and order having broken down (I survived two robberies at knifepoint, almost lot an eye in one, and nobody was ever caught) if i had fought back I would probably have gone to prison while they got away lightly; on this topic do see this example if you do not believe me:

Tony Martin - this happened almost on my home soil, I grew up in Cambridgeshire;

• The country being run "by the super rich, for the super rich" by this philosophy conservative 'government', to hell with the rest of us;

• How can a 'world leading' nation be incapable of housing its people, and price 'bread and butter basics' such as housing do high as to be unaffordable to normal people. Get to grips!

No, I am not joking. And why not Google Grenfell Tower either?

• The above bunch of social misfits trying to change the law to prevent the courts blocking their plan to send the desperate to Rwanda, without any certainty...

that they will not be returned to the country they fled (dictators look on in approval)

• The shambolic response to Covid-19 which cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and we, the struggling poor, have to pay back the cost of until we die

• The way this country treats it's fathers, who have few effective rights;

And when I leave here you can read my book which will be published shortly afterwards...

• The way that you will be forced to sell all you own if you have a stroke, or get Alzheimer’s, Parkinson's or similar and end up in a care home, leaving no inheritance for

your children (when you thought you were 'being responsible'). It goes without mentioning that I would sooner be shot than retire here. I have worked in one of this country's few remaining national treasures, the national health service (NHS); I have known more than enough horror stories of the elderly left to die alone, in miserable poverty, lonely and cold, perhaps to be found by the postman who notices that the mail has not been collected for some weeks....

• The way the Conservative government, filled with self-serving, millionaire social misfits, continues it's "make the poor suffer and become productive" agenda while age discrimination continues unabated, and we continue to be blamed for our ill health, poverty and inability to pay our way in a job market which gives us no security whatsoever. But then, since when were arithmetic, budgeting, life skills and vocabulary such as the meaning of the word 'affordable' taught at Eton?! Indeed, there is one famous person from history who practiced this very same ideology of brutalising the working poor in the belief that they became more productive. His name was Joseph Stalin.

• And let us not talk about Brexit, the cost of living crisis and how the system forces people into poverty either. If you have not guessed my answer to the question, if you are going to get your arse shot off, do it for a cause you believe in. I do not consider my own country a worthy cause to die for, as should have become obvious if you got this far! Rats leave a sinking ship. Likewise I plan to leave and watch the UK crash and burn on CNN. Enough said.

I really am not interested in political correctness, nor care if I upset someone. Indeed, I plan to embark on a ruthless program of restructuring and modernisation of my family, and to bring it, possibly kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The 'work, telly bed' outlook, and the "children should be seen and not heard' philosophy among others, are to be consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong. I intend to equip it to survive in the modern world, if my remaining elders do not mind (or even if they do, for that matter). I am merely a man of principle, and it is about time some honest people spoke out.