Start of WWI nothing to celebrate, say MPs

The latest history spat follows the Prime Minister's recent Magna Carta memory lapse and his earlier clueless claim that Britain was "a junior partner" to the US during the 1940 Battle of Britain - even though the US did not enter the war until 1941.

Plaid Cymru MPs at Westminster accused Mr Cameron of making a major blunder by announcing a £50 million programme to celebrate the 2014 centenary of the start of the first world war.

Carmarthen MP Jonathan Edwards and Arfon MP Hywel Williams said the atrocious human suffering and destruction between 1914 and 1918 should instead be marked on the centenary of the end of the bloody war.

Mr Edwards said: "The Prime Minister should look at his old history notes, because the start of the first world war is not something that we should be celebrating."

The Plaid MPs put down a Commons early day motion pointing out that "the cause of the war was the imperialistic foreign policy of the powers of the day."

The motion recalled that an estimated 10 million soldiers died during the conflict, with 21 million injured. In addition, one million civilians were slaughtered and a further six million perished from famine and disease.

"It would be more appropriate to commemorate the end of the war rather than its beginning," emphasised the MPs.

Left Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn suggested: "Cameron really ought to spend the next year studying history."

He accused the PM of making a "silly announcement surrounded by flags and imperial bunting" about celebrating the start of the first world war.

Mr Corbyn recalled that there had been strong opposition to the war among working-class people in Britain, France and Germany.

He added: "Cameron ought to remember that the disaster of the first world war led to the total rewriting of the history of the world, with the Russian Revolution, the end of the Ottoman empire and sowing the seeds of the end of the British empire and the rise of US power."