Robert Henderson
Comparisons between the UK in 1940 and the UK in 2020 are understandable but mistaken because these are two very different societies .
To begin with the psychological/sociological situations are different. The threat is 1940 was one that everyone could understand, large numbers from their experience in the Great War. There was a clear enemy in 1940 .
The coronavirus threat is an open ended one which the ordinary person cannot do much to protect themselves, not least because the virus is subject to mutation.
The war in 1940 brought full employment . For a generation which had gone through the privations of the 1930s and the Great Depression this was both an opportunity to bring in a decent regular wage and to have their days filled with useful work, the latter playing into the sense of a collective war effort. Today people +are experiencing the reverse with fears of lost work and much of the work done being done is not done in the workplace but in the home. That is isolating.
Another big difference between then and now is that far from neglecting the Nazi threat in the 1930s, the UK government had made considerable preparations for war , for example the development and manufacture of high performance fights (Spitfires and Hurricanes), the development of radar and four engines heavy bombers (Lancaster, (entered service 1942) Stirling (entered service 1941) , Halifax (entered service 1940. It is worth noting that the Germans never developed a reliable heavy bomber, the nearest they got to it was the ill fated Heinkel Greif (Griffin) 177 .
Equally important was the rationing system for food and other essentials which was up and running in 1939. The British state was much better prepared to meet the 1940 emergency than it is to meet the coronavirus.
But the greatest difference between 1940 and now is the composition and mentality of the British population. In 1940 the only sizeable minority was the Jewish one. The country was very homogeneous .
Today the UK population is divided by the various large ethnic and racial minorities (whose separateness is encouraged by the purveyors of multiculturalism) and other divisions wrought by political correctness such those based on gender, sexual inclination and a faux idea of equality which promotes the interests not of all but the groups protected by political correctness. Because of this country is now noticeably heterogeneous in race, culture and mentality.
To these differences must be added the effects of the UK’s 47 year membership of what became the EU and the divisions it has created throughout our membership and Brexit.,
Finally, devolution since the Blair reformation has resulted in the Celtic Fringe gaining more and more powers and especially in Scotland there is serious agitation for independence while Wales and Northern Ireland play at independence forever point scoring at England’s expense. England meanwhile has been ignored in the devolution stakes despite the fact she heavily subsidises Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. The upshot of these changes to the UK population has become vastly more divided than it was in 1940. In 1940 there was a real sense of common purpose . Today that has become impossible.
Living In A Madhouse 