We failed to build a new Jerusalem

Anthony Seldon

- 

Eighty years ago this weekend, on Sunday 11 November 1945, King George VI joined the newly minted Labour prime minister Clement Attlee in laying wreaths on the Cenotaph in London's Whitehall, the first time in seven years that the remembrance ceremony, introduced after the first world war, had taken place in peacetime. Across the nation, millions assembled at 11am to stand for two minutes in silence.

What was being marked, beyond the loss of 380,000 members of Britain's armed services and 67,000 civilians? Victory. Victory over dictatorship in a war that Britain had seemed destined to lose. The war had touched every corner of the country, every man, woman and child.

Unity, gratitude and hope were the overwhelming emotions of the day.

Unlike after 1918, there was no return to militarism in Germany or elsewhere. Never again would genocide be tolerated. Unlike after 1918, when the prime minister, David Lloyd George, had promised "a fit country for heroes to live in", Attlee was intent on delivering on "a new Jerusalem" for British people. Unlike after 1918, when division quickly spread, there was a resolute will to deliver on rebuilding the social contract for peacetime.