"Britain certainly thought it had legitimate reasons for going in, and I think it did," she says.

What the blazes does that mean. If by Britain you mean the island of Great Britain, that is an island surrounded by sea. Or a number of islands if you mean the British Isles. It is a geographic entity, no more capable of rational thought than any other rock. Does she mean the people who lived in Great Britain. In the British Isles. Which ones? What is her methodology for determining what they thought? Opinion polls?

No, what she means is the British government and establishment of the day. Herein lies the problem with historians, they are incapable of distinguishing the interests of the People from those of the Government and establishment. The Government and establishment were concerned only with their own survival as an entity (not even their personal survival for there is no evidence that had the Germans taken over they all would have been killed). They were not interested in the lives of the soldiers they sacrificed for their own personal interests.

We have the same problem today. The media bang on about "the reforms Britain needs from the EU", when what they mean is the reforms that Cameron and his mates in the City of London want. No mention of reforms which are in the interests of the British working people. They do not count.