David Lammy is early victim of Poppy Culture Wars
David Lammy standing in for Starmer at PM’s Questions on Wednesday fell an early victim of the annual poppy culture wars.
In 2025 the poppy worn by those in the public eye is not the traditional one sold by the British Legion but a small enamel version that looks like it is something used for eye tests by Spec Savers.
Anyway at the start of PMQs Lammy was not wearing one. Apparently he had a new suit on and had forgotten. Cue full blown culture war. Later on in PMQs one was found for him to wear.
I will need to make an admission here. David Lammy is my MP and has been for 25 years. As the previous long time secretary and chair of Haringey Trades Union Council I’ve worked with him over the years. He is decent on union issues and appropriately, mostly on the mark about racism and Windrush. These issues impact people in Tottenham, his constituents.
Of course there is a lot more that could be said. He usually faces a left opponent at Elections who sometimes save their deposit. David’s is not the only view in Tottenham historically on the Iraq War which he supported and now on Palestine.
However when it comes to poppy culture wars let’s remember all the ethnic minorities who fought for Britain in the First and Second World Wars and indeed in the wars the country has got involved with (usually ill advisedly) since.
I’ve never seen exact figures but I do know that numbers of young black residents in Tottenham serve in the forces. It’s a job and racism in the labour market narrows options.
In case anyone thinks I’m minimising the poppy issue my father fought at Monte Cassino in Italy in World War Two and was then at the liberation of Belsen. He rarely spoke of that but always wore a poppy. Not as part of a culture war but in memory of his friends and comrades who had died fighting fascism.
You’re surely old enough to remember, as I do, when the poppy was worn on Remembrance Sunday only, and to wear one before or after was infra dig. Now they appear in mid-October (or before), and are worn for weeks after the 11th (sometimes all year round). Perhaps inevitably, this goes hand in hand with them becoming no more than a signal to others about the wearer, and little or nothing to do with remembrance. (I should perhaps add that I wear a white poppy, and have done for some thirty years.)