Nostalgia isn't what it used to be
I am ready an excellent book on the D Day landings at the moment and like many men of my generation I can’t get enough of Second World War history. However I do find it troubling that the further away from the war we get the more the interest and nostalgia for it seems to increase, along with an amazing amount of ignorance.
People who boast that Europe needed the UK in 1944 and still owes the country a debt, that the UK won the war almost single handed and want to return to a time when the UK still had am empire are ten a penny at the moment. Encouraged by a government that seems to have forgotten that being accused of wrapping yourself in the flag is an insult in the UK.
Interestingly while the older voters supported Brexit, the oldest ones who actually fought in the war didn’t. As my sainted mother used to say, any one nostalgic for the 40’s and 50’s obviously never lived through them. John le Carré’s death and the news that after Brexit he applied for and got an Irish passport, tells you all you need to know.
It took Suez in the 1950’s for the UK to realise it was no longer a world power, what will it take this time?