Thatcher’s former Governor General of Scotland, Ian Lang, made a wee speech in the House of Lords in which he said that Scottish independence would dishonour all those who had fought and died in the UK’s assorted wars.

As far as I can discover, Ian Lang has never seen active service in the military. Instead he’s made a very lucrative career for himself in Tory politics, followed by his pretendy Lordy title and a series of directorships. According to Businessweek, the privately educated Lang has amassed a very profitable portfolio of part time directorships which bring him in over £240,000 annually. It’s the natural career path of a Tory poshboy.

So I asked my other half what he thought about Lang’s intervention. Himself is a former Royal Marine who saw active service in Suez and Cyprus, two not especially honourable episodes in Britain’s imperial past – but we’ll gloss over that. He killed people, his friends died, and he got some shiny medals for his pains. After leaving the Royal Marines he served for 25 years in the Metropolitan police, where he continued to protect the likes of Ian Lang.

The other half is English, not a person of Scottish parentage who happened to have been born down south, he’s yer actual Englishman with the yew wot accent and everything. He fully intends to vote yes in September’s referendum. His exact words on hearing Lang’s comments were: “Lang can go fuck himself. He doesn’t know what honour means. He won’t tell me what I fought for.”

I wish I hadn’t asked, because the other half then went into an extended rant about how a former Thatcher cabinet minister has no business telling anyone what is or is not “honourable”. It’s pretty rich for an exserviceman to be called dishonourable by a man who spent his career betraying working class servicepeople and took a leading role in a government which slashed the services those servicepeople now rely on when they are infirm or disabled.

All across the UK, frail and elderly ex-servicemen are left lying for hours in their own shit because care provision has been axed. Where’s the honour when you reek of stale urine Ian? Thanks to Ian Lang and his colleagues, former soldiers freeze because they’re forced to choose between eating or heating. Where’s the honour Ian?

If that’s the honour Ian Lang speaks of, who is dishonouring who?

If anything, my partner fought for the Britain of consensus, the Britain of the NHS and the welfare state, the Britain of free education, the Britain that cares for the infirm, the disabled, the elderly, and those who’ve been dealt a bad hand by life. He did not fight for the Britain of ATOS, the Britain of cuts and privatisation. He certainly didn’t fight for the Britain of illegal wars. But that’s the Britain Lang has created, and now he has the audacity to claim that we dishonour the selfish nasty and narrow little Parliament that is a tool of the misrule of those who know no honour, only profit.

No Ian, we are not dishonouring servicemen by voting for independence. We are honouring them, because we’re protecting them from your betrayals, your cant, and your lies. With independence we can create a land that really is fit for heroes. We can preserve those good parts of the postwar consensus that you have made it your life’s work to destroy.

We are dishonouring YOU Ian, because dishonour is all you and your so called “Lords” deserve.

I do hope the Daily Mail is listening, because this particular instance of cybernattery comes from an English ex serviceman who has never used a computer in his life.