Today is the 79th anniversary of D-Day, 6 June 1944, when Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy to begin the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe and the end of the Second World War. Despite the fears of prime minister Winston Churchill and others that the Anglo-American and Canadian landings would be a bloody fiasco, victory was achieved. A beachhead was secured, and the minutely planned Operation Overlord eventually secured a peaceful Europe, albeit at a fearful cost: 4,414 Allied servicemen died on that day alone.

Naturally, the steady subsequent attrition of the years means that there are hardly any survivors left from that historic day. As a result, it is we, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of that heroic generation who must mark the day and reflect on what their courage and sacrifice won for us and what we have done with their legacy.

Let us be honest: the men who stormed ashore on that day would hardly recognise the world that we have created, and would be amazed and perhaps even ashamed of the mess that we have made of their sacrifice .

They might perhaps welcome the hi-tech physical world of the internet and Artificial Intelligence that can remove wearisome chores, facilitate instant communication with the ends of the earth, and translate our thoughts into actions before they are even half formulated. But it is the more intangible values that they fought and died for that have been forgotten, ignored and even trampled on in the intervening eight decades.

The men who stormed ashore on that day would hardly recognise the world that we have created

The average D-Day soldier, if asked, would have said that they were fighting to remove a vile tyranny from the face of Europe,. Beyond that, there hope might have been to build a better society in which their children could grow up in a clean and more equitable environment than the pinched and unjust years that had produced the inhuman fascism that they were helping to destroy.

But looking around us today what do we see? Instead of a fair and democratic society responsive to human needs, we have somehow constructed an impersonal monster controlled by remote and unfeeling institutions and forces far removed from the wants and welfare of ordinary people.

Those who survived D-Day and its aftermath and returned to homes fit for heroes would have had no difficulty in defining a woman. They would have been proud rather than apologetic about their country and its past.

Many of them, in the year that saw the end of the war would have voted for a Labour party ostensibly dedicated to building a happier and healthier nation, in which people would be judged for what they were as individuals rather than on the colour of their skins or the privileges of the race that they were born into.

They would have seen nothing strange or perverse in duty or patriotism, and would have put the needs of others ahead of their own selfish desires for money and status as a matter of course.

The doctors and nurses working in the new National Health Service would never have dreamed of going on strike and putting their patients’ lives at risk in selfish pursuit of an unaffordable pay rise .

Public servants from politicians to police officers would have enjoyed respect and even affection because they promoted and embodied rules and standards accepted and obeyed by pretty much everyone.

The Britain of the 1950s that we look down on for being boring at least had the virtues of cohesion and tradition. People may have known their place and revered their imperfect betters, but they did have somewhere to belong to and feel at home in rather than the deracinated wilderness we inhabit today.

The sad truth is that rather than uphold, defend and promote the values for which the D-Day generation suffered and sacrificed, we have betrayed them. The incomparable legacy that they bequeathed to us has been soiled and sold.