As we approach Remembrance Sunday, we are reminded daily of the horrors of war by the newscasts on our television screens, they are shocking and dreadful to watch.
In World war II the scenes that would have accompanied civilian distress throughout Europe would have been as equally horrible and shocking had instant close-up television coverage been available.
Perhaps the absence of mass demonstrations demanding a ceasefire back then, can be put down to the unavailability of that television coverage.
Alternatively, we might put it down to a clearer national consciousness that our Kingdom, for all its faults and short-comings, was in an existential struggle for survival against an ideology that would extinguish our liberties, our values and our way of life. Therefore, in those circumstances, whatever the misery and the innocent civilian casualties, there was no prospect for ceasefire, for compromise, we just had to prevail at whatever cost, or face oblivion.
Constituents email me daily drawing my attention to the horrors on their TV screens, demanding my support for a ceasefire. There is no ceasefire to be had. Israel, whatever its faults and shortcomings, is locked into an existential conflict with Hamas, whose aim it to obliterate it and replace it with an Islamic republic of the most repressive sort. There is no compromise that can be had. A ceasefire merely provides the opportunity to rearm and resume
We must do all we can to provide humanitarian relief but the horror, unless a leopard can change its spots, will continue