Peter Hitchens has argued that the meaning of the Remembrance Poppy has been weakened by its association with modern wars, insisting that it should commemorate the dead rather than promote further military action.
Writing after attending a Remembrance gathering at Paddington Station, Hitchens described the memorial on Platform One by sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger. It shows a soldier quietly reading a letter from home, rather than carrying a weapon.
Jagger served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front during the First World War, was wounded and received the Military Cross. Hitchens said the artist had personally witnessed the losses commemorated by the memorials he helped create.
He argued that Britain’s war memorials carry several meanings at once. They recall sacrifice, but also express grief for the men whose families were often denied the traditional rituals of mourning.
Many soldiers’ bodies could not be recovered, Hitchens noted, while the usual signs of public mourning – including tolling bells and drawn blinds – were absent. Marble crosses, stone obelisks and cenotaphs therefore became a way for families and communities to mark losses that had never been given a solemn funeral.
He highlighted memorials at Fleetwood and Port Sunlight, including the latter’s sculptures of orphaned children and a woman holding her children among figures representing men in combat.
For Hitchens, the Poppy represents “reflection, regret and sadness”. He said the two-minute silence made him think principally of the fear and pain experienced by men in battle.
Although he is not a pacifist and said that almost every generation of his family had served in the King’s uniform, Hitchens expressed concern about the way Remembrance has been used in political life.
How the Remembrance Poppy became politicised
He recalled that, during the 1980s, wearing a Poppy could be regarded on the Left as “militaristic”, with November ceremonies appearing to lose their prominence.
That changed under New Labour, he argued, when Left-wing MPs were effectively expected to wear Poppies when appearing on television. He linked the shift to a broader reworking of patriotism that included support for wars of choice.
Hitchens pointed to Tony Blair’s public appearances with troops in Kosovo and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that, from then on, politicians and television presenters who did not wear a Poppy during the Remembrance period could face criticism.
He said he preferred a time when wearing one was more clearly a matter of personal choice. His own reason for doing so, he added, was to commemorate what he regarded as a noble sacrifice, not to endorse further conflict.
“I don’t do it because I want any more wars,” Hitchens wrote, arguing that Britain had already lost enough of its best people.
