AIBU to think spending 50 million quid on commemorating WW1 is slightly bonkers?

[Dotty342kids]

Just been listening to David Cameron's speech about the importance of commemorating the centenary of WW1. Am in full agreement about the significance of the date and that in no way should it be forgotten or overlooked. But 50million pounds? In the current climate? After all the other speeches and announcements this week about cutting spending and the hardships this is going to cause for many low income families..... I just feel it's ever so slightly wrong!

I detest Cameron and his cronies but I do support this idea due to the reasons highlighted by complexsentence.

The thing is that there are still many of us who had relations who gave all in the First World War, leaving widows behind who had b all on which to survive. One of my grandfathers drove an ambulance in France but survived and I had great uncles and grand-in-laws and my great uncle's father-in-law who died there and have their names on monuments. My Ex grandfather-in-law died on Armistice Day in France by being knocked down by a bus during celebrations.

Apart from that, we - and future generations - must remember that what they gave enabled us to live the lives we have. More details should be given in schools so that pupils don't like to call them students until they are at university learn why they have the free life and all that goes with it now.

£50m is peanuts if it bring the country together in a cohesion of thought about what we have and why.

YABU.

Every secondary school child will visit the trenches.

Sorry meant children from every school not every child!!!

Why are they commemorating the outbreak of war, rather than the armistice? I think that would be more appropriate.

Cynical me sees it as politically motivated: something to stir up patriotic feelings and make David Cameron look good before the next election. Because he's unlikely still to be PM in 2018...

Outrageous use of funds. Imagine many kids will be underwhelmed looking at the trenches. Sure help for heroes could use that cash much more constructively.

I was not underwhelmed looking at trenches, the opposite in fact. It was cold and wet and we had to crawl around them. Seeing rows and rows of headstones in person is very different.

At 16 I had no interest in history but I felt humbled by my trip.

I think spending money on our children remembering the sacrifices people made for them is a good thing. Telling them is no good. Showing them is. We need more national pride. We need to appreciate how lucky we all are.

I do agree though it is probably more of a political move which is sad.

YABU.

I appreciate others would like it spent elsewhere, but this is a centenary.

IWM refit has been planned for a very long time and is long overdue. Lots of the funding for that is coming from elsewhere.

Cynical me sees it as politically motivated: something to stir up patriotic feelings and make David Cameron look good before the next election. Because he's unlikely still to be PM in 2018

My thoughts too. Funny how they're preparing to deal a major blow on a lot of people in this country financially, and now they come out with this one. An attempt at regaining some favour perhaps? Not going to work.

But at school we learnt some WW1 poetry aged 12; then teacher read to us from a book explaining about the war & about how soldiers lived at the time.

We then wrote as if we were soldiers writing a 'last letter' or a diary entry in the trenches - i remember trying to make the diary entries seem authentic by getting the paper muddy!

It cost the bare minimum for the teacher to get the books from the library; give us basic lined paper & get us thinking about the sacrifices made.

I'm glad if some of the money is going to museums - they had a lot of money taken away to pay for the Olympics.

I'd support remembering the tragedy of the beginning of the First World War - though do not think £50 million needs to be spent for that to happen well. In fact I think it would do more to build communities if the ideas and planning of events came from within the community ( as often happened in war-time )

I worry that it will be used to encourage more young men and women to go to war rather than less

If you want some ideas of what to spend money on how about ways to honour and remember conscientious objectors ?

I wouldn't want to see the money go to Help for Heroes; because their current charitable aims limit their activities to the veterans of the recent Afghan and Iraq wars. There are still more amputees from World War II and other earlier conflicts. If it were a case of a donation of public funds (which it won't be), I would vastly prefer to see it going to one of the more inclusive charities, with a real network of caseworkers, like SSAFA.

Where are all the people farting about us not having any money?

That kind of money could pay the ESA of the 65 people a month who DIE after ATOS has judged them fit for work for 208 years!!!

It could pay an annual carers allowance for 16,366 people.

It could provide the NHS standard number of continence products for a year for 168598 people.

Yet there are people saying it's a hard fact of life that disabled people and carers are losing their money because we as a nation have none!

Bloody disgusting.

(FWIW yes it needs to be commemorated, but not with money pissed up the wall)

And actually some of the figures I quoted above can and will affect war veterans.

I support this money being spent. Especially if some of it is educational. I am from a generation that doesn't feel too far away from the two world wars, but I don't think my children will feel the same when they grow up. Things like this will help to keep people supporting the British Legion years into the future, and that is a good thing.

Lest we forget...

Great sentiments, and I also believe in Lest we Forget, but as you're fond of stating Freddos, we're bankrupt. Skint.

I heard this and made my blood boil...

I understand and agree that it should be remembered, and children educated about it.

I cannot believe that any of those poor boys who gave their life would want this. Surely the whole point hypothetically was that they gave their lives so that we would have better ones. Which to my mind does not mean spending a shit load of money celebrating a war, when we are skint - or ever.

Celebrate the end of it, not the start. It seems vulgar and in poor taste to celebrate something which caused so much misery.

I hate that man, and his stupid smugness.

I read Cameron wants every school child to visit war graves in France and Belgium.

*Why are they commemorating the outbreak of war, rather than the armistice? I think that would be more appropriate.

Cynical me sees it as politically motivated: something to stir up patriotic feelings and make David Cameron look good before the next election. Because he's unlikely still to be PM in 2018...*

This with bells on, and cynical me also notices that this is coinciding with the referendum vote!

I have no problem with remembering it, or even kids being taught about it in history, or TV programmes surrounding it. But there is NOTHING to celebrate. Espeially as wars are still going on and people are still dying, so what he hell is there to celebrate exactly. IMO we have learned nothing.

Also I am slightly concerned about the Anti-German feeling that could be dragged up.Germany is not the same country as it was 70 or 100 years ago. And if we want to be all historical about it, Germany didn't even start the war, but got the blame for it, cos the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empire had gone.

sashh Fri 12-Oct-12 12:16:03
I read Cameron wants every school child to visit war graves in France and Belgium.

I do wonder about this, how will that mange to send children with sn? wheelchairs and such like.

The armistice will be commemorated.

The outbreak has to be marked because it's the centenary, you can't just ignore and say yeah yeah, we'll cover that in 4 years' time. It's also the first big anniversary since it was out of living memory. This has been a long time in the planning, it wasn't just thought up this week.