In response to certain media speculation that, as part of its consultation on burial and cremation law, the Law Commission is proposing that Commonwealth war graves should be reused, the Commission has issued the following press release:
“There has been some media coverage which suggests that, as part of our burials consultation, the Law Commission is proposing that Commonwealth war graves (graves of servicemen and women who died in the First and Second World Wars) should be reused. This is not the case.
Grave reuse is currently permitted by law in London local authority cemeteries, and a few cemeteries with their own private Acts of Parliament. In these cemeteries, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission must be notified before a burial ground operator seeks to reuse a grave, and has the power to object to the reuse of a Commonwealth war grave.
Our provisional proposals would include these same requirements in any extension of grave reuse. That would mean the Commonwealth War Graves Commission would be able to stop Commonwealth war graves being reused. Our provisional proposals would also give the Commonwealth War Graves Commission additional rights to enable them to protect Commonwealth war graves in other ways.
Our provisional proposals therefore seek to increase rather than decrease the protection available to Commonwealth war graves.”
I took part in the consultation and, as a military historian, the aspect referenced was of great interest. The commission’s statement is correct – as anyone from the ‘media’ would have noted if they’d taken the opportunity to read the proposal. But, what’s today’s media without speculation – shame they don’t do the job their predecessors did, and research/investigate properly.
So did I, and it would never have occurred to me when reading the consultation document that anyone would assume that the Commission was proposing the reuse of Commonwealth war graves. When I saw the press release I was astonished that it should have been necessary to publish it at all – I suspect it was a bad attack of TL:DR.
Thanks, Frank, for educating us: “TL;DR
Internet comment on the verbosity of a post
TL;DR or tl;dr, short for “too long; didn’t read”, is internet slang often used to introduce a summary of an online post or news article. It is also used as an informal interjection commenting that a block of text has been ignored due to its length. Wikipedia “