DAILY MAIL COMMENT: A duty to the nation

By DAILY MAIL COMMENT

Published: | Updated:

Lately we’ve grown so used to stunning economic news that there’s a danger of seeing it as nothing out of the ordinary.

But let’s not forget it’s thanks to sound policies that two reports yesterday predicted robust growth in the second quarter, putting us on course for a world-beating performance over the year.

At this 11th hour, the Mail makes one final plea to Ukip sympathisers: don’t let your vote help Ed Miliband wreck the country we all love.

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At this 11th hour, the Mail makes one final plea to Ukip sympathisers: don’t let your vote help Ed Miliband wreck the country we all love

At this 11th hour, the Mail makes one final plea to Ukip sympathisers: don’t let your vote help Ed Miliband wreck the country we all love

 

Never take peace in Europe for granted

Seventy years ago tomorrow, Britain erupted in jubilation at the end of six years of hell in which 60million lost their lives.

This was a conflict that had caught the country desperately unprepared. But our armed forces, and the civilians who threw everything into the war effort, heroically rose to their seemingly impossible task.

VE Day was the crowning of their sacrifice – the start to official celebrations of Victory in Europe after Germany’s unconditional surrender, signed by Hitler’s successor the day before.

   

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Won at terrible cost – in this country alone, more than 500,000 homes were destroyed and thousands of civilians killed – it was the dawn of a new age of peace, freedom, democracy and prosperity after the years of ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’.

So how depressing it is that many of today’s young beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by their grandparents’ generation are unaware even of what VE Day stands for – let alone its immense significance.

A poll for SSAFA, the armed forces charity, finds more than half of Britain’s 18 to 25-year-olds are ignorant about the anniversary, while 38 per cent could not even identify Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister who announced the victory. Risibly, 4 per cent believed this distinction belonged to Tony Blair!

Are we bringing up a generation that takes peace and freedom so much for granted that it thinks nothing of the price that had to be paid for them – and may yet have to be paid again?

More disquieting still, today’s politicians also appear to regard peace as the natural condition of Europe, and war so unthinkable that there’s no point in being prepared for it – or even talking about its possibility.

How many candidates, in the course of this grimly stage-managed and dishonest election campaign, have so much as mentioned specific threats to our security, or the fact that Britain is so savagely cutting back its means to defend itself?

Yet look around – from Islamist fanaticism in North Africa and the Middle East to Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine and the Baltic states – and not since the Cold War has Europe’s peace seemed so precarious.

Back in the 1930s, politicians who had lived through the 1914-18 conflict, widely seen as the ‘war to end all wars’, at least had an excuse for their unpreparedness.

A poll has found more than half of Britain’s 18 to 25-year-olds are ignorant about the VE Day anniversary, while 38 per cent could not even identify Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister who announced the victory

A poll has found more than half of Britain’s 18 to 25-year-olds are ignorant about the VE Day anniversary, while 38 per cent could not even identify Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister who announced the victory

After Hitler proved them so catastrophically wrong, you might think their successors today would move Heaven and earth to avoid making the same mistake, and heed the lesson of history.

This is why the Mail is so proud of its role in ensuring that today’s anniversary is properly marked.

Thanks to our campaign – and David Cameron’s laudable intervention – party leaders will be taking time off from any horse-trading to attend ceremonies in memory of the victory and the heroes who brought it about. Let us hope they reflect deeply on what the day means.

With luck, something of the significance of VE Day may even filter through to the 54 per cent of young adults who know nothing about it. For only at its utmost peril can any generation take peace and freedom for granted.

 

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