Puritan poppy-shamers should find a better use of their time
The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Of course, in the era of viral sloganeering, of hashtag demos, of “Je Suis Charlie” displays of fireside activism, it’s not enough just to feel something. And so it was that David Cameron’s apparatchiks ludicrously manipulated a picture of the PM on Downing Street’s official website to make it look like he was wearing a poppy, and Sienna Miller was forced to explain herself when she appeared on Graham Norton’s TV show sans poppy. Those of us who were around when Princess Diana died will remember that the biggest display of communal emotion in living memory was quite slow to build, and it was days before the British public decided what they thought of things, and took to the streets to express themselves.
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