Peter Rhodes on honour in the Falklands, the ultimate conspiracy theory and the hazards of upsocking

THE new Bill against upskirting will soon become law. Now, what about the delicate issue of politicians inadvertently upskirting themselves? How many times have you been watching ministers during TV coverage of the Commons when a female MP sitting behind them reveals more than her dossiers? Male MPs often expose several inches of hairy leg. If we can ban upskirting I'm sure we can ban upsocking.

I HAD a moment of pride on reading, a few days ago, that forensic scientists have identified 18 previously unknown Argentine soldiers killed in the 1982 Falklands War. They will be given new headstones bearing their names. May it bring some comfort to their families.

IN the first years after the conflict, the shattering loss felt in Argentina was not top priority in Whitehall. That began to change in 1988 after a small posse of British journalists visited the islands on a reinforcement exercise. I was one of them.

FOR all sorts of reasons back then, even the simple act of sending floral tributes to the Argentine cemetery in the Falklands was a bureaucratic tangle. Argentine families had to hand their flowers to the Brazilian embassy in Buenos Aires, to be flown 7,000 miles to Britain, passed to our Foreign Office and flown 8,000 miles down to the Falklands where a civilian official took them to the cemetery. He told me the tiny. wilting bouquets never had names, just messages in Spanish like `My Beloved' or 'My Little Dove'. So he placed them by whichever of the crosses caught his eye. My dispatch from the Falklands referred to "the idiotic, unforgivable, 15,000-mile flight that pride and politics demand." We hacks all wrote in the same angry vein. I heard later through MoD contacts that "your articles were read, questions were asked." And things began to change. From 1990 parties of Argentine families were invited to visit the cemetery. The task of identifying those unknown soldiers, many of whom had no ID tags, began. Today, visits are routine. Each year brings more DNA successes, more named headstones. It is the mark of a civilised country that you treat your enemy dead with the same respect as your own.

MORE on the "despite Brexit" front. Latest figures show the lowest levels of unemployment since 1975 and more people in work than ever. We are not only working hard but planning with confidence. Foreign-holiday bookings are up five per cent on last year's. Er, despite Brexit.

MEANWHILE, as all sorts of groups conspire to scupper Brexit, let me repeat a piece I wrote four months before the 2016 Referendum suggesting that the ultimate conspiracy group, the Illuminati, may be at work. It went: "Do you ever wonder why America is so keen on Britain remaining in the EU? As any conspiracy theorist will tell you, the ultimate aim of the Illuminati, the shadowy network which actually controls Planet Earth, is global government. When nation states group together in huge borderless unions, they are working toward the Illuminati plan." Couldn't possibly be true, could it . . ?