"Dave, Jim has quoted the same bit of his Spectator review SEVEN TIMES IN THE LAST FEW DAYS."
And seven time you have called your historian a liar by claiming the review of his book does not represent his views, after his having welcomed it as fair, generous and accurate, with the exception of one conclusion - (that he hated the military) - Hastings has denied nothing else
Well worth repeating the review seven times more, as far as I'm concerned - and will do in the future should the opportunity arise.
"Just for the record I have never knowingly been a comrade."
Not sure what Keith means exactly by this - my dictionary gives three definitions
As far as I am concerned, if he means I am a member of a communist or socialist party - he is, as usual wrong - I have no political affiliation.
If he means I hold left wing views - he is, of course, correct to a degree - but as I have described myself over and over again a humanist (small L) and a pacifist, he once more ignores what people say when it suits him and makes it up as he goes along.
If he is claiming that it is left to think this war was a total waste of human life - fine by me - maybe I should consider joining something!
As he and some of historians have claimed, that the 'Blackadder' view of this shitty war needs changing - there must be a great number of Socialists/Communists in Britain today otherwise neither he nor his historians would bother their arses mentioning Blackadder - he is the only one to have brought it up here.
This war was caused by different groups of predatory Imperialist capitalists sending millions of mainly young men to their deaths in pursuit of territory and wealth:

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I, was around 40 million.
There were 20 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes
9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also
known as the Allies) lost about 5.7 million soldiers while the Central Powers lost about 4 million."

It was an Imperialist war brought about by right wing politics.
World War two was brought about by extremist right wing politics driven by a desire for world domination, added to which was a crusade to wipe out an entire people because of their religious beliefs and cultural background.
IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT BOTH OF THESE WARS WERE POLITICALLY RIGHT-WING INSTIGATED I HAVE NO PROBLEM WHEN PEOPLE DESCRIBE ME AS "LEFT WING" - AS MISLEADING AS THAT MIGHT BE
Keith's obsessive defence of this horrific war certainly puts paid to his claim that he isn't a right-wing extremist
Out of the closet or what?
Jim Carroll