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Now that we don't have an impending Olympic games to argue about...

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Forum Editor
Resolved

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Posted October 11, 2012 at 11:26PM

Along comes another potentially contentious subject

Or perhaps I'm wrong, and everyone will wholeheartedly endorse the idea.

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bluesbrother

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 3:02AM

I think 'potentialy contentious' might be a bit of an understatment given some of the other headlines lately

Child benefit cuts: Millions of letters to be sent 'soon'

Eight Shelter offices across England could close

Tory conference: George Osborne in £10bn benefit cut vow

Or, and perhaps I'm being cynical here, someone is bowing to the inevitablity of unemployment and is trying to curry favour in certain quarters.

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wiz-king

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 5:38AM

Seems a little strange - celebrating the start of a war.

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Kevscar1

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 6:59AM

Would have thught they wouild wait ubtil 2018 and celebrate the end

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morddwyd

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 7:44AM

" celebrating the start of a war."

It's a commemoration, not a celebration.

There is a difference.

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Condom

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 9:02AM

The cynic in me says this is just the PM trying to get some votes on a subject that he thinks will unite the population as a whole. I would agree that the end of the war should be the right moment rather than the beginning but again that might be a bit too late for his needs.

There is not much of the battlefields left these days and children would most likely be taken to the graveyards which would not be my idea of an event for children. Perhaps sitting them down and showing them excerpts from some vivid movies would give them all the reality needed.

It was a bloody war fought with outdated tactics and with no thought to the loss of life by those in charge. In my mind not really much to celebrate there apart from its ending.

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carver

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 9:11AM

Condom have to agree with you

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Forum Editor

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 9:24AM

Condom

"In my mind not really much to celebrate there apart from its ending."

Who mentioned a celebration?

The proposal is for a commemoration, there's a big difference. Just short of a million people from the UK lost their lives in the war, and if you add those from British dominions overseas the figure rises to about 1.2 million.

The idea of a commemoration is to reinforce the nation's awareness of that appalling loss of life, and hopefully to instil a sense of the consequences of a world war into a generation that is far too young to have had any direct knowledge of what happened.

A nation needs a sense of its past, just as much as a vision of its future.

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oresome

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 9:28AM

Look at the war memorial in the smallest town or village and it gives some idea of the scale of deaths that occurred. Mostly young men barely out of school.

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Aitchbee

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 9:53AM

Without wanting to bring politics into this subject, the BBC report states that these centenary commemorations will 'not be unhelpful' in keeping the Union together, just when the Scots will be making their minds up on Independence matters.

I am not so sure about that.

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Condom

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Posted October 12, 2012 at 12:03PM

I take on what other people have said but for me what should be remembered about this dreadful war was the ending. Not so much that the end was successful in itself but that the allied powers failed to win the peace which followed.

To often victorious powers have failed to plan for what happens after a war and we still see this today and the "phrase lessons will be learned" actually never happens. What happened at the end of WW1 was a major cause of the rise of the Nazi party and the drift into WW11.

To my mind every village, town and city across the UK already has memorials to the Great War, a misnomer if there ever was one, and I think that is a fitting enough memory to all those who lost their lives.

No doubt others will think differently and so be it.

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