We should always feel proud of our country from Churchill to Rorke’s Drift — don’t listen to those who say we should feel ashamed

ARE we still allowed to feel pride in our country?

Herr Peter Ammon, the outgoing German ambassador to the UK, bids farewell to these shores with the advice that the British should stop thinking quite so much about World War Two.

“You focus only on how Britain stood alone,” sneers Herr Ammon, which he reckons creates “illusions” and “does not solve the problems of today”.

The German ambassador is not alone in believing British ­patriotism is now rather like ­smoking — horribly old-fashioned, inherently shameful and more than a little disgusting.

Transport for London erased a handwritten sign outside Dollis Hill underground station that was meant as a modest memorial to the ­anniversary of Rorke’s Drift, when in 1879, 150 ­British soldiers defended a hospital station against 4,000 Zulu warriors, earning the defenders 11 Victoria Crosses.

If you grew up in this country in the Sixties then you imbibed the Michael Caine movie Zulu with your mother’s milk, and no doubt believed that Rorke’s Drift was a battle of unimaginable courage.

But in the Britain of 2018, we are meant to be ashamed of this chapter in our nation’s history (and all the other chapters too, of course).

When staff at Dollis Hill Tube station were accused of “celebrating colonialism” by some unknown snowflake, they erased the sign remembering Rorke’s Drift and offered a craven, grovelling apology to “any customers who were offended” by the message, which TfL denounced as “ill-judged”.

But it wasn’t. The only thing TfL got wrong was being so quick to bend the knee to some virtue-signalling cretin who feels no love for this country or its past.

I happened to be in Germany last week and I can understand why some nations wish to forget their past and the sins of their fathers.

But Britain is emphatically not one of those countries.

The oldest democracy in the world, we have stood with our allies and we have sometimes stood alone against some of the greatest tyrants in history, from Napoleon to Hitler.

The slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1833, decades before they fought a civil war about slavery in America.

For centuries this country has given a home to those fleeing oppression, from the ­Huguenots in the 16th century who suffered religious ­persecution in France, to the Jews who escaped Nazism in the last century, to the refugees from every war-torn hellhole on the planet today.

I feel nothing but pride in my country and its past.

And there are millions like me. The silent, patriotic majority will scratch their heads in bewilderment at the sneering students who occupied the Churchill-themed Blighty Cafe to denounce our wartime leader as “a racist” and the cafe as “celebrating colonialism”.

“Scum” was daubed on a mural of Churchill.

But if Winston Churchill was not an anti-fascist, then who the hell was?

And Churchill — and the nation he led, this country that stood alone against Hitler before America and Russia were both forced into the war — fought real, genuine fascists, the kind of fascists who built gas chambers where six million men, women and children were exterminated.

Real Nazis, as I say — and I emphasise the point because “Nazi” and “fascist” are terms that get chucked around too easily these days. You can get called a Nazi on Twitter just for daring to vote Tory.

Churchill stood against fascism in a fight to the death. And this country, Europe and the world would look very different today if he had failed.

So don’t let anyone ever tell you our history is a source of shame.

The great denial of Brexit is based upon the notion that 17.4million morons got it wrong by believing that our national identity is worth preserving.

That is the core of the Brexit debate — is our country worth loving? The silent, patriotic majority believe it is.

The invasion of the Blighty Cafe was led by Halimo Hussein, 24, who was born in Ealing, West London, after her family came to this country as refugees from war-ravaged Somalia.

This is a free country — thanks to Winston Churchill — and Halimo is free to believe whatever crap she wants. But some gratitude would be in order.

And some thanks that she lives in a land where we have ­freedom of speech.

And the good manners to acknowledge that this country did her family an act of kindness by giving them a home.

If all of that is beyond the silly little cow, then she should read some history until she understands that if it wasn’t for what this ­country did in World War Two, a shouty student like her would not be at a university.

She would be in a concentration camp.

Weed who might one day lead

LONG perceived as a cartoon toff, Jacob Rees-Mogg is emerging as a politician of extraordinary civility, intellect and – not least – physical courage.

A violent brawl erupted UWE Bristol when mouthy masked thugs tried to shut down a speech by the 48-year-old Tory MP.

He stepped into the middle of the aggravation – despite describing himself as “a complete weed” – and when it was over he talked, off the cuff, for one hour on the importance of freedom of speech.

Even the young Labour voters in the audience went away impressed.

Because Jacob Rees-Mogg no longer looks like a young fogey.

Increasingly he looks like a future Prime Minister.

Kim's handsy assistant

WHAT qualif­ications do you need to get the job done by Kim Kardashian’s assistant, seen rubbing oil into her nether regions at a photoshoot in Malibu?

And what’s the money like?

Or perhaps he just does it for the crack.

Sexuality is only for the famous

MILEY CYRUS points her pert little ­bottom at her 74million Instagram followers and that’s female empowerment.

Yet anonymous Grand Prix grid girls are axed from Formula One, following their lovely, and equally unknown, colleagues in darts and snooker into the mists of history.

It feels as if women are still allowed to be sexually alluring. But only if they are famous.

Strictly no room for cheek

STRICTLY Come Dancing will miss Brendan Cole, who is not being offered another contract with the show.

Brendan, 41 was the only pro dancer with the nerve to give those self-satisfied judges a bit of lip.

But Strictly is far bigger than the sum of its parts.

If it can blithely carry on without Sir Bruce Forsyth then it can get by without anyone.

Self-satisfied judges please note.

Eton's ego is Cam's handi-cap

THE style editor of GQ magazine was once asked what was the greatest mistake that British men make with their clothes.

“They don’t fit,” he said.

Those wise words came back to me when I saw David Cameron wearing his XXL Peaky Blinders flat cap while having a day out at a point-to-point.

Cameron will be remembered as a man of epic arrogance who believed he could call a referendum on our membership of the European Union and then get all the thicko peasants to vote exactly as he wanted.

It was a huge miscalculation that stemmed from his Old Etonian arrogance.

But if Cameron was always too big for his boots, then he is now definitely too small for his hat.

We do treat animals poorly...

MUCH mockery of the vegan activist who took offence at Jeremy Vine interviewing him with a ham sandwich on his desk.

But he is right that the way we treat animals is sickening.

We throw away nearly a quarter of a million chickens every day because the meat has passed its “use-by” date. That’s a staggering 86million chickens every year being thrown in the trash can.

And you don’t have to be any kind of animal activist to find that scale of waste totally obscene.