The chancellor needs to remember what the 'E' in VE Day stands for

Having been born the day the Mallard broke the steam locomotive speed record of 126mph between Grantham and Peterborough — 3 July 1938, since you ask ~ I have vivid memories of the second world war.

- William Keegan

VE Day was welcome for obvious reasons, and in particular in our area of west Wimbledon, because it meant there would be no more V-1s dropping out of the sky in unnerving silence, as their engines cut off before descent. One destroyed the church at the end of our road, with the blast shattering our windows. Luckily, we were protected by the Anderson shelter in the garden.

I remember asking my father, who was serving in the Home Guard:

I nearly fell off my chair when Reeves said our trade with the EU was 'arguably' more important than that with the US

“Does this mean there will be no more news?”

There has been plenty of news ever since, not least last week, when much was rightly made of VE Day celebrations of the importance of Nato in keeping the peace in Europe after the war. But the importance of the European Union must not be forgotten either. It was the brainchild of French statesmen Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, the idea being to bind formerly antagonistic European nations together politically by economic means, on the basis that countries that trade with each other tend not to go to war with each other.