WWII veteran declares winning the war ‘wasn’t worth it’ due to the state of the UK
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/ww2-veteran-declares-winning-the-war-wasnt-worth-state-of-uk-5HjdGTg_2/
by StGuthlac2025
WWII veteran declares winning the war ‘wasn’t worth it’ due to the state of the UK
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/ww2-veteran-declares-winning-the-war-wasnt-worth-state-of-uk-5HjdGTg_2/
by StGuthlac2025
26 comments
It’s tricky. I’m grateful for his service, respect his opinion and he’s got the right for his voice to be heard. But this is a 100 year old man and this interview will be used by some to fuel division.
That’s unfortunately vague enough that lots will be projecting what he means on to that statement.
I will say being lucky enough to be old enough to meet some WW2 vets they had incredible personality that is rare today. It came with its own issues of ignoring the trauma they went through but any I met were very measured characters.
I understand the spirit of this statement – that we have lost freedoms and it’s shameful – but the stakes of WW2 were FAR greater than anything modern politics has produced since.
Flawed democracy, limited liberty, and piecemeal equality across the whole of Europe will always be worth fighting for in the face of Fascism. My life, like many others, depends on it.
The article doesn’t say why he felt that way, so I went looking for one which does.
[https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/adil-ray-itv-gmb-wwii-war-hero-alec-penstone-backlash-uk](https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/adil-ray-itv-gmb-wwii-war-hero-alec-penstone-backlash-uk)
>”The country of today. No, I’m sorry, the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.”
>As Ms Garraway offered a sympathetic response to Mr Penstone’s point of view, Mr Ray interjected for the first time during the discussion and attempted to press him to expand on his point.
>”What do you mean by that, though?” the GMB host probed, prompting the WWII veteran to reply: “What we fought for, and what we fought for was our freedom.
>”We find that even now it’s downright worse than when I fought for it.”
Can’t really fault that.
> “The country of today. No, I’m sorry, the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now.”
Mr Ray interjected for the first time during the discussion and attempted to press him to expand on his point.
> “What do you mean by that, though?” the GMB host probed, prompting the WWII veteran to reply: “What we fought for, and what we fought for was our freedom.
> “We find that even now it’s downright worse than when I fought for it.”
Amusingly, the person interviewing him (Adil Ray) and who was aghast that he would think such a thing yesterday tweeted this;
> Some say Mamdani may implement Sharia Law. He might. The heart of Sharia is social justice, welfare, fairness, charity and cohesion. Most Muslim countries operate a hybrid of Sharia & civil law, are slowly reforming and abandoning unethical practices despite the west’s portrayal.
He’s talking absolute nonsense, the Nazis were conducting genocide on a industrial scale. It wasn’t worth it to end that? I respect him for his service but this is bollocks.
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What is with the comments here
This was 1 person, and their experience, out of millions. What they say means no more, or shouldn’t have any more power than anyone else.
The fact you’re all trying to take something away and attribute some sort of higher meaning to it is stupid.
> Grumpy old man whinges that the country is going downhill since his day
Since when was this news?
>Asked by host Kate Garraway what Remembrance Sunday meant to him, war veteran Alec emotionally described how it felt as though winning the war was ‘not worth’ the sacrifice of how the country had turned out today.
>Alec said: “My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye those rows and rows of white stones and all the hundreds of my friends who gave their lives, for what? The country of today?
>“No, I’m sorry – but the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result of what it is now.”
>Alec continued: “What we fought for was our freedom, but now it’s a darn sight worse than when I fought for it.”
Well that’s heartbreaking and depressing.
I mean it clearly was worth it. Unless you think living under Nazi rule is better?
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OK, but I think the country is in a better state than it was in 1945.
I wonder how far a veteran has to go before we’re in our rights to tell them to fuck right off.
Would’ve been a lot more dead people than your hundred mates or so.
Surveys show fewer people are proud to be British. There is growing political polarisation, a perception the streets are unsafe. There is a lot of homelessness in some cities and town centers often feel dystopian. Many towns where I come from, the industrial north, are horribly generic – bookies, cheap booze, charity, bookies, gambling arcade, thrift shop, ‘we sell lottery’, etc, etc. I left 30 years ago and when I visit, it astounds me how little development there has been. My town looks worse, the town where several of my friends died from overdose, one murdered, two killed themselves. Deindustrialization hurts, yet he government seems to have abandoned so much of England. I have traveled a lot and seen development elsewhere, I’ve seen hope, entrepreneurship, but not so much at home.
Then there have been the massive transfers of wealth, austerity, few natives having children. To offset this, the government’s recklessly embraced mass immigration. This has led to more division, overturned services, and dare I say, in some cities, a grim lack of social cohesion. Some towns look absolutely shocking. A country needs an identity, and Britain, as presented well by Adam Curtis, has lost its identity. It is like a shipwreck with no hope of a future, and this will get worse. The left side of politics abandoned the working classes. Identity replaced class, and as inequality widened, we see in movies and on Tv, how toxic and incompetent the working class white male is. The privileged few, ideologues, hijacked the left. Unfortunately, this will/has driven desperate people into the arms of populists. History could have told us this would happen.
I have nightmares about living back in England. I love my friends and am proud of what my culture has achieved, but I felt abandoned by the government a long time ago and I think working class people are feeling it now. There is a pervasive feeling of gloom there, of bitterness, anger, of desperation, evident in the increase in deaths of despair, something we rarely, if ever, hear about because the vast majority of victims are poor, white males. The left is as much to blame as the right. As Orwell saw so many years ago, there is a danger in the left being populated by virtue signalling elites. But the public also seems to have bought into the woke problem, as towns collapse, as people suffer, as crime rates increase to levels not seen since the 90s when police made more arrests for minor crimes. Addiction, alcoholism, depression, are off the scale. I’m a leftist through and through, but I am sure my views will be seen as right, because I blame the entitled wokists as much as the uncaring rightists. If you want to make things better, then focus your ire on class, inequality, rather than get down on your knees because it is fashionable.
Unfortunately, today’s generation doesn’t fully understand what these people went to war for. Their sacrifices are often interpreted through modern political lenses, twisting the meaning of their actions to fit current narratives. When this veteran says it “wasn’t worth it,” people will inevitably project their own views whether about immigration, social change, or the political climate, onto his words.
However, his sentiment might not be about any single issue, but rather about a broader decline in national unity, respect, and resilience. Many veterans fought for a country they believed in one built on shared values, community spirit, and opportunity. Seeing the current state of things, rising violence, the cost of living crisis, political division, and a loss of common identity, could understandably feel disheartening to someone who sacrificed so much. I was born in the 80’s and this country has changed for the worse…
Our problems of today are for us to sort out. We created them, we have to deal with them. But regardless of how we have fucked things up, I’d take today and our problems over Nazi hegemony over Europe and Imperial Japanese hegemony over the Far East. Thank you for your service, but I disagree with you.
The Reddit users typing « original antifa » really ought to see this one.
Assuming he means what was the point of defeating the evil of facism when all it has taken is a bit of russian and facist American billionaire money to pervert the minds of the easily led over here
Not just him but many in the veteran community even post WW2 are ashamed at what this country has become.
The Barbarians are at the gates.
Ofcorse it’s on LBC they will turn anything and make it a controversy.
Look what they all did was incredible and we should never forget that.
We should also note that life for average citizen in the UK is a lot better than it was before WW2 anyone who has studied history or picked up a book can tell you that.
Do we have problems yeah like every fucking generation has done in the entirety of history.
The country he sacrificed for colonised mine for 150 years. Even after the war Churchill opposed the independence of Indian colonies. So….
That’s devastating. Politics aside, I can imagine the weight of those who saw such carnage and experienced such loss to feel this way about what their home has become.
I’d say 80 years down the line Germany came out better. In terms of rebuilding the economy.
We’ve seen the post-war consensus be squandered by industrial disputes, ladders being pulled up, neo-liberalist ideology finish off industries and sell off public assets to hedge funds.
He’s fair to say the past 80 years has seen us squander our potential.
But I will disagree with him about how winning the war wasn’t worth it. It was worth it to stop German aggression continue unchecked across the continent, to prevent the Nazis from finishing off the Final Solution, to build a hope of a peaceful vision of Europe.
It was worth that sacrifice, because the alternative (letting Hitler take continental Europe 1-by-1 and systematically erase millions upon millions more than he did) would be far and away immeasurably more grim than anyone could imagine.
I say this as someone born nigh on 50-60 years after that fact, conscious it was not my sacrifice but that of those who came before me. But I say this as someone who, with the benefit of history, am grateful I was not born into a country that had lost WW2, that it’s the responsibility of those future generations to build things that do make it worth it
By what metric are we less free today then we were back then? I would say this man is extremely out of touch with the realities of life.
I would not be surprised if he sits at home watching gbnews all day, like a lot of these old folks with terrible opinions.
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