PETER HITCHENS: Steve McQueen's blockbuster Blitz is propaganda dressed up as historical fact - with racism on every street corner and the Communist Party portrayed as heroes

It is hard to beat a good nostalgic war film at this time of year. They will see that its star is the luminous Saoirse Ronan, and perhaps expect to be carried romantically back into those dangerous days when Britain stood alone and London could take it I confess that, though I know the London Blitz was a horror, I have inherited some of my romantic view of it from my late mother, born in 1921, who always gave the impression of having rather enjoyed herself at the time, while serving in the glamorous ranks of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Blitz is set in London, 1940, and stars Saoirse Ronan as a single mother whose mixed-race son George, a reluctant evacuee, leaps from a train to travel back home to be with his mum Elliott Heffernan, 11, does a great job with a dubious part, says Hitchens. 'Ronan is that modern heroine, a single mother, who lives with her aged father, in a neat house and works in a factory with several other spirited Cockney sparrows,' says Peter Hitchens Musician Paul Weller plays George's grandfather, but 'he just floats through the film looking knowingly superior,' says Hitchens. 'After an hour of Blitz, I felt thoroughly propagandised' 'Racism is everywhere,' says Hitchens, with London being portrayed as 'a city of virulent white racism at almost every corner', while George is kidnapped by a gang and forced to rob corpses Mum, by the way, is that modern heroine, a single mother, who lives with her aged father, in a small neat house and works in a munitions factory with several other spirited Cockney sparrows.