The myth of the Bad War

Since VE Day , Britain ’s role in the greatest and most lethal war in human history has grown in stature.

Invoking the war has become the last semi-acceptable form of patriotism, writes Mary Dejevsky .

The lacklustre anniversary reveals a political establishment estranged from its own nation's past.

Last-minute plans and the sheer lacklustreness of the anniversary events speak to something deeper than incompetence or poor organisation.

It touches on our political establishment’s ever deepening estrangement from Britain 's history, its separation from even a residual stream of patriotic pride.

Our political elites have long cringed in the face of most displays of popular patriotism, but they have always been eager to identify themselves with Britain 's role in the Second World War eager, that is, to associate themselves with the Good War' .

John Major ’s government seized on the 50th anniversaries of the D-Day landings in 1994 and VE Day in 1995 to push its sepia-tinted vision of the nation.

In 1993 , Major even gave a speech defining England with a George Orwell quote.

In the years since there has been a crucial change in elite attitudes to British nationhood and history.