VE Day Reflection

I turned 70 this year. The Second World War ended a full decade before I was born. And yet, here we are again – Union flag bunting flapping in the breeze, Vera Lynn echoing from Bluetooth speakers, and TV presenters breathlessly narrating as if it all happened yesterday. Forgive me if I don’t wave a little flag.

It’s not that I don’t respect the sacrifice – I do. But VE Day, to me, carries about as much emotional weight as Trafalgar Day. It’s history, not memory. I didn’t fight. My parents lived through it – they were in their late teens and early twenties during the Blitz – but by the time I was old enough to grasp what the war had been, Britain had moved on. Bomb sites were car parks, rationing was over, and Germany was a trading partner.

And let’s talk about that sacrifice. We’re often told the whole country “pulled together” – that everyone did their bit. In a sense, yes – but let’s separate the myth from the numbers.

A little bit of digging found that in 194, Britain had a population of about 47.5 million. Of those, 5.9 million served in the armed forces. Sounds impressive – until you realise only 10–15% of them saw front-line combat. That’s between 590,000 and 885,000 people – or roughly 1.2 to 1.9% of the total population.

Even in the mud and horror of the First World War, only 40–50% of the 5.7 million who served went to the front. That’s 5.5 to 6.8% of a 42 million population. Still a minority, albeit a much larger one.

This isn’t to diminish their courage – quite the opposite. It’s to highlight how lopsided the modern myth-making has become. A small proportion bore the brunt. The rest of the country kept calm and carried on – and there’s no shame in that. But let’s not rewrite history to make it sound like every bank clerk was storming the beaches.

And since when did VE Day become such a fixture? For most of my life, it barely registered outside the big anniversaries – the 25th, the 50th. A wreath here, a broadcast there. The turning point came with the 75th in 2020 – during the pandemic. Lockdown singalongs, flags on balconies, and a government eager for a dose of patriotic escapism. From there it snowballed – bunting, themed beer, swing dancing in cul-de-sacs. VE Day recast as historical cosplay.

What troubles me is how it’s been hijacked – turned into a nationalistic comfort blanket, often brandished by people who couldn’t point to Caen on a map, let alone explain what VE stands for. Since Brexit, it’s become a stage for a fantasy Britain – heroic, self-reliant, and conveniently amnesiac. No Empire. No Americans. And certainly no mention of the Russians, who did most of the dying.

I don’t need a brass band to respect the dead. I don’t need a plastic poppy to feel gratitude. And I certainly don’t need revisionist nostalgia to feel “British.” Respect, yes. Reverence? Not when it curdles into kitsch.

So no, I didn't hang out the bunting yesterday. I marked it in my own quiet way – by remembering the dead, respecting the facts, and resisting the urge to turn history into pantomime.

And what’s with the “celebrations”? Pubs open two hours longer, not for quiet toasts but for more time to get thoroughly pissed. It’s not remembrance – it’s marketing. Somewhere between the themed beer mats and wartime playlists, the meaning gets lost. And let’s be clear: if anyone had a right to celebrate VE Day, it was my parents’ generation. They lived it. They carried the fear and the loss. They earned the day. We didn’t.

If we want to honour the dead, we already have a day for that – Remembrance Day. That’s when we pause to reflect on all who fell, in all wars. Quiet, solemn, and without themed merchandise. VE Day marked a victory. Remembrance Day acknowledges the cost. Confusing the two does neither justice.

Because while we drape ourselves in borrowed glory, the present is on fire.

We once said “Never again.” We built memorials. We taught our children about the Warsaw Ghetto and the machine-like murder that followed. We told ourselves that civilised people could never again allow such cruelty, such dehumanisation, such contempt for life to take root.

And yet, today – 9th May 2025 – Gaza burns.

To be clear: Gaza is not the Warsaw Ghetto. There are no trains to death camps, no industrial extermination. But that doesn’t absolve us. If anything, it demands that we pay closer attention. What is happening isn’t a historical echo – it is contemporary, it is brutal, and it is happening in real time.

Over two million people – half of them children – trapped in a narrow strip of land with no power, no water, no safe refuge. Aid convoys blocked. Hospitals bombed. Journalists silenced. Families erased. And in the face of it all, we’re told it’s “complex.”

The moral cowardice of that word – complex. As if the presence of militants somehow justifies the deliberate starvation of civilians. As if a child buried in rubble must first understand geopolitics before their suffering matters.

Israel has a right to exist. It has a right to defend itself. But this is not defence – it is collective punishment. It is not proportional when entire neighbourhoods are obliterated to target a few fighters. And it is not morally defensible to treat 2.3 million people as acceptable collateral.

Now, on this very day, Netanyahu’s government has formally approved a plan to “capture” the Gaza Strip in its entirety. Not just airstrikes or raids – but occupation. Permanent military control, no clear endpoint, no path to peace. No reconstruction. No diplomacy. Just domination. The siege isn’t an emergency measure – it’s an objective.

Some recoil at any comparison to the Warsaw Ghetto. But what truly diminishes the Holocaust – learning from it, or ignoring suffering because it’s politically inconvenient? If “Never again” is only about the past, then it’s just performance.

The Warsaw Ghetto was a warning – of what happens when people are demonised, sealed off, and stripped of their humanity. What we see in Gaza – the siege, the cruelty, the normalisation of mass death – bears a chilling resemblance in principle, if not in method.

And still we watch. We issue statements. We balance “both sides.” While diplomats fumble for language, the rubble piles up, and the living envy the dead.

This isn’t about being “pro-Israeli” or “pro-Palestinian.” It’s about being anti-brutality. Anti-cruelty. Anti-impunity. Because if we cannot condemn this – clearly, firmly, and now – then what are we waiting for? A final solution?

The test of our civilisation is not how well we mourn the past. It is how fiercely we respond to the present.

Gaza is not Warsaw. But the moral question is the same. Do we look away? Or do we say: Not again. Not in our time. Not in our name.

Then there's Ukraine.....