Former Navy serviceman Alec Penstone, a 100-year-old World War II veteran, criticized modern-day Britain, solemnly declaring that the “sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that [the country] is now.”
In an appearance on Good Morning Britain, Penstone discussed Remembrance Sunday, a day to honor the military and its sacrifices.
“What does Remembrance Sunday mean for you? What is your message?” host Kate Garraway asked.
“My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye the rows and rows of white stones of all the hundreds of my friends and everybody else that gave their lives for what?” Penstone responded. “The country of today. No, I’m sorry, the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.”
Host Adil Ray probed the veteran, asking, “What do you mean by that, though?”
Penstone explained that servicemen fought for Britain’s freedom, noting that “even now it’s downright worse than when I fought for it.”
Garraway added that “all the generations that have come since, including me and my children, are so grateful for your bravery and all that for service personnel,” asserting that “it’s our job now, isn’t it, to make it the country that you fought for — you absolutely fought for.”
The United Kingdom’s first female Muslim Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, took office in September. During her first day in office, more than 1,000 illegal immigrants arrived after crossing the English Channel, reports indicate.
Amid reports of grooming gangs in the UK, a government analysis found that there is a “lack of a full picture” in data sets, although available data indicates “disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination.”
A “significant number” of the ongoing police operations into exploitation cases “involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK,” the analysis adds.
