Other signatories to that covenant

I’ve long suppressed my instinct for a story, but I couldn’t help checking this one out.

GOV.UK - https://www.gov.uk/defence-and-armed-forces/armed-forces-covenant - under “guidance” has a whole list of the 7,468 companies that have also signed the pledge to date. They include many universities, though not Oxbridge or London, schools, hospitals, NHS Trusts, football clubs, local authorities and charities, especially military charities, rifle clubs and aerospace organisations, alongside Sky UK, TalkTalk and Thomson Reuters, which signed on 31 August 2021.

The idea’s been around for a while. Pre-Brexit. But what is the idea? A warm and fuzzy gesture, like a version of The Big Society, or a dangerous girding of the national loins? Certainly part of the new UK message. I’m afraid that worries me more than an errant - and reversible - signature at Thomson Reuters, woeful as it is. ■