It’s also, Janet tells me, 100 years since the Unknown Soldier was finally laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, with due solemnity and ceremony, saluted by King George V. I wish that today’s heads of state could respect the war dead as much – they are not ‘losers’.
But what do we learn from the wasteland of war? We don’t want it to happen again – but that’s easier said than done. Sometimes it’s hard even to imagine another way. However it worries me when we move towards belligerence when we don’t have to. Sometimes an angry leader will resonate with the anger of his or her people. Sometimes the ground has been tilled by years of scapegoating. It can happen anywhere, north or south, east or west.
It can happen here.