Robert Hardman

Escape to victory

With just ten weeks to go, however, plans for the 70th anniversary of VE day remain sketchy

Breakfast is under way on 8 May 2015, and the party leaders have already started haggling. The possibility of a loveless Labour/SNP ‘anti-austerity’ pact has sent the markets tumbling. With the largest number of seats but no overall majority, the Tories are making eyes at the least un-attractive potential bedfellows. Assorted pressure groups are trying to rekindle the same ‘Purple Protest’ movement which sought to exploit the political void immediately after the 2010 election. Having spent all night telling the television cameras that all this voting stuff is, like, rubbish, an exhausted Russell Brand urges his followers to rise up and do, er, something. But the protestors find that the streets are already full of people. Like it or not, the politicians have to curtail their horse-trading, brush their hair and join them all.

Because whichever way votes are cast on 7 May, all the party leaders will now be obliged to attend the same victory party on 8 May. The body language should be exquisite.

The 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe day should be a salutary reminder that there are some things even bigger than politics. A formal ceremony at the Cenotaph on the afternoon of 8 May will kick off three days of concerts, services and street parties — plus a parade through central London — to mark, surely, one of the greatest days in British history. The royal family, buoyed by the arrival of a new baby a few days earlier, will be out in force. The ceremonies, broadcast live on the BBC, will be a tribute to the wartime generation. Unlike, say, last year’s poignant and powerful commemorations of the 70th anniversary of D-day, VE day will focus not only on the Forces but on everyone who helped Britain to victory — Land Girls, evacuees, Bevin Boys, Bletchley Park codebreakers, boy scouts and Captain Mainwaring.

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