All week I have been hearing the heart-rending stories of brave young men and women whose lives have been lost or ruined. And as each year, when I watch the pomp and ceremony and marching military bands at the Cenotaph - I feel angry. So with no less respect for extraordinary young people who have given their lives:

The Universal Trader

He wears pinstripe suits and shiny shiny shoes
He deals in death for all and every cause
He sells to everyone, there’s no one cannot buy
He’s supplier to a thousand wars

He sells to Muslims and to Jews, to tyrants and to kings
To Catholics and Protestants the same
He knows he shouldn’t sell
Yes he knows it very well
Killing you for me and me for you

And he’s selling to Bosnia
He’s selling to the Serbs
He’s selling for the USA
And he’s selling for Great Britain
And he’s selling arms for France
And he knows that he will profit just the same

And he’s selling for democracies
He’s selling death for gain
He says it’s for the good of all
He’s the one whose trade decides
Who will live and who will die
And he never sees his deadly profits fall

But without him
How would Saddam have tyrannised Iraq
Without him dictators could not rule
He’s the one who launders money
From profits made from war
And without him all this killing can’t go on

He’s the Universal Trader and he really is to blame
The only one who thinks he knows the score
He doesn’t care who’s right or wrong, whose children he will maim
And we know this lethal game
Is why we’ll never put an end to war.