ONE hundred years on and the platitudes of sanctimonious politicians to justify the first world war bloodbath are no less nauseating.

Yes, the event should be marked and certainly the sacrifices of working people, whether in uniform in the killing fields of Flanders or toiling at home to care for families, should be remembered.

But the guff spewed out by politicians or by royal family members kitted out as Ruritanian top brass, complete with a chestful of unearned medals, should have no place in any commemoration.

Their rationale for unleashing industrialised killing machines and the obligatory happy ending — “we’re all friends now?” — hides the enormity of the crime against humanity that was the first world war.

Worse, by averting their gaze from the real reasons for the conflict, these effete Establishment voices avoid explaining why the “war to end all wars” was followed not only by a second world war but countless localised conflicts that represent a constant state of war.

If you avert your eyes from the hacking up of Yugoslavia and the current fratricidal strife in Ukraine, Europe has been remarkably free from inter-state conflicts, our rulers congratulate themselves.

That’s because US-led imperialist powers have united to impose their collective sway on Africa and western Asia.

It’s no coincidence that most countries subjected to “humanitarian” bombing blitzes or pre-emptive occupations to assist them towards Washington-approved freedom and democracy have massive oil and gas reserves.

Imperialism’s perceived energy needs dictate the need for free access to hydrocarbon reserves and for the removal of any regime that could pose a threat to that access.

In ordering these priorities, the US and its allies are behaving similarly to the British, French, Belgian and Portuguese empires that carved up Africa in the late 19th century.

They bled Africa dry, making European elites extremely wealthy and holding back colonised Africa’s economic and social development.

Germany, which had been late in uniting as a state and competing with other European imperial projects, was determined to break into the African closed shop operated by its neighbours.

Berlin had only South-West Africa (now Namibia) and Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and it sought more colonial plunder to finance further economic development and markets in which to sell its goods, while Britain and company wanted to hold what they had.

That was the sordid reality that made the first world war inevitable — colonial rich pickings and markets.

Yet David Cameron would have us believe that there were “important principles at stake — that there shouldn’t be the domination of Europe by one power, that small countries had a right to their independence and existence — and these are problems that still confront us today.”

This presumably explains why Britain’s ruling class was so insistent on one small country, Ireland, having its right to independence respected — or perhaps not.

If Cameron really believed this fairy story about why the first world war took place, his parents would be entitled to complain that his expensive private education was money wasted.

But he doesn’t. The Prime Minister and the ruling class that he represents understand the role of military power in securing capitalist wealth.

Working people were hoodwinked 100 years ago, volunteering to slaughter and be slaughtered by workers fighting for rival imperial powers.

That lesson has to be learned so that no worker falls for “help for heroes” rhetoric that translates into pro-war propaganda.