Link: Commemoration day to recall slave trade and make UK face up to past | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.

The nation of Shakespeare, Nelson and Wilberforce has no reason to apologise for its ancestors. Not all they did was good by modern standards, but every man is entitled to be judged by the morals of his age. I am sure that much we do today will shock our descendants. Let us hope that they are more merciful than to condemn us for errors we do not understand.

Overall, our ancestors gave the world more than any nation since antiquity. If apology is owed today it is to their memory, for our having allowed the nation they loved and for which they fought and died, so to degrade herself as to be led by such a specimen of modern manhood as John Prescott.