You sometimes wonder if people who put together newspapers these days have ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf. This was one of Aesop’s fables which taught children about the dangers of scaremongering in order to get attention, the moral being that if you persist in doing so, no-one will believe you in the end.

If nuclear warfare is upon us, there’s nothing readers can do about it

If nuclear warfare is upon us, there’s nothing readers can do about it

Certainly, sub-editors who write headlines to the effect of ‘We’re on the breach of World War Three’ seem unaware of its lesson, as do their superiors, who all hope that such attention-grabbing sensationalism will increase sales or garner more online hits. Which explains why we saw in the Daily Mail this weekend a report headed: ‘World War III will likely start within the next decade, majority of Britons believe – and military experts agree.’

In the article below we read a new YouGov poll which reveals that 53 per cent of people think it is ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ that we will be dragged into global conflict within the next five to ten years. It went on to quote General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint........

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