Me, the war and a message for Mr Blair

War, said Leon Trotsky, was the locomotive of history. It unleashed far reaching, unpredictable change. Russia's participation in the First World War may indeed have helped bring about the Revolution; but the series of rather smaller conflicts joined by the British Government since 1997 didn't unleash much in Britain at all.

Kosovo, Desert Fox, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan - all, in their time, were intense, controversial events. But not long after the military campaigns were over, the issue went away. Unless you were a Kosovar, a Sierra Leonean or an Afghan, the controversy faded from mind. If these were locomotives of history, they were clearly ones operated by Connex.

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