"no-one has ever bothered me for not wearing a poppy"
Steve has the right of it Raed - if you are a public figure and don't wear a poppy you are castigated by the media and the refusal to wear one becomes a political weapon
The fact that this has now become an issue is proof enough of the pressure to wear one.
I most certainly do not agree with you that officers suffered most, nor do I agree with you that WW1 was a leveller - again, on the contrary, the conditions the survivors (that words speaks volumes) returned to for a short period, but by the end of the 20s, conditions had plummeted below what they were at the beginning of the century.
Class division accelerated during WW2 - those workers that weren't fighting suffered wartime conditions and slept in shelters while the better off dodged the worse effects and, when things got too hot, moved out of the danger areas or sailed to America:

"The rich men's families sailed away
While the refugees slept in Berkeley Square"

as the song says.   
At the end of WW"2 the new Labour Government improved the conditions immensely despite vehement opposition and at the first opportunity, those improvements were dismantled.
What were we fighting and suffering for?
The establishment appeased fascism right up to the point they were given no alternative and anybody who attempted to oppose its rise were treated as criminals
Again a repetition - but you seem to have not been around for previous argument.
My family took to the streets to oppose Mosely - they fought the police who protected him and his scum as well as the Blackshirts.
My grandmother was arrested for throwing a stone and hitting Mosely in Liverpool - still a matter of pride in my family.
My father saw what was happening in Germany and volunteered to fight in Spain to stop the rise of fascism.
He was wounded and imprisoned and when he returned home in 1939 he found he had an MI5 record as a "premature anti-fascist", he was blacklisted from work and forced to take to the road as a navvy - my sister and I didn't see him for longer than a week-end until I was about 10.
He was excommunicated from his religion as well - but that was a favour rather than a punishment.
If we were fighting for something in these wars, you'll have to tell us what.
At least the German and the Russian People attempted to do something about it.
Our history is one of fighting wars for the benefit of others - it really is time we stopped doing so.
It certainly is time that remembrance ceremonies became more than the lip-service to the dead that they are now.
We live in Ireland now - I've been staggered this year at the 100th anniversary of Easter Week, which has lasted nearly a year and so far has been the most inspiring and educational period of my life since I left school - no glorification, no self-congratulatory back-patting, no outpourings of hate - but an in-depth self-critical look at Ireland's most important achievement - warts and all.
That's the way these things should be treated - not the gathering of the great and the good around the cenotaph - then back to business as usual in Syria and Afghanistan and arms sales and throwing out Johnny Foreigner....
What did we win as "ordinary people" through sacrificing our loved ones (I lost a grandfather in WW1 - so did my wife - we seem as deep in the sit as our partents and grandparents were?
Sorry to hear you can't get Watt's book - try the libray - it really is a unique study.
Amazon UK have a couple of used copies at nonsensically low prices
Jim Carroll