Battles are not the only warfare successes

26 May to 4 June is the anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation, a tremendous achievement. While many men were taken by 42 destroyers and other large ships 700 small boats, some no larger than river cruisers, also played a significant part and some 300,000 people were transported to England. War can evoke the very best in people and one survivor recounted yesterday that it was not so much ‘it’s my turn’, rather ‘we will help one another’. The last surviving ‘little ships of Dunkirk’ captain mentioned that the greatest enemy for him was lack of sleep: with only one hour rest in 24 it was difficult to keep alert.

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.

How far will the party ‘landscape’ change?

On 11 May 2010 a new, a coalition, government is formed after a three-cornered general election contest. Well, it seemed three cornered until the exit poll on 6 May was published. As at 13 May, pending one result [a safe Conservative seat], the LIberal Democrats have 57 MPs. Historians may think back 100 years and the two general elections of 1910 and three vigorous political parties. In December 1910 Labour had 42 MPs returned, up from 30 in 1906. All three parties, over the years 1910-30, had less than certain futures although by 1945 the pattern of two dominant parties, a pattern that pertained for the nineteenth century, had become re-established. Who can say what the future party-political pattern will be if in the current [5-year] parliament the AV [alternative vote] form of voting is made law subsequent to a referendum, as promised by the coalition agreement?

Contributor: Tom Wells. Sempringham [ehistory.org.uk] eLearning Office.