TIS the morning after the night before.

The streamers have been swept away, the balloons burst, and a precious hour or two of sleep snatched. Camps will have split into the victors and vanquished, both uncertain of what lies ahead.

Truly historic times.

Not for us, the voters who merely took part in a general election, an event that comes along with the regularity of buses in these taken for granted democratic days. However seismic the outcome, it is as nothing compared to what was being marked 70 years ago today when victory in Europe was declared.

In comparison with such world-shaping events, #GE2015, as Twitter terms it, is but a grain of sand in history's desert. Some of last night's losers might like to comfort themselves with that notion.

In the UK, VE Day will be marked with three days of events, including services of thanksgiving and remembrance, the lighting of beacons, and a concert.

A two-minute silence will be held today at 3pm to mark Churchill's formal announcement of victory in Europe. There will be pomp, there will be ceremony, there will be street parties, and all the coverage the massed ranks of the BBC and other broadcasters can fit in between post-election pondering.

Those dubbed the greatest generation will be remembered once more, but for how long will we carry on remembering them, and what lessons will we take away?

It is fitting that political leaders should gathering at the Cenotaph in London the day after a general election. Holding a free, peaceful ballot is surely one of the finest ways to mark the victory of democracy over totalitarianism. Yet we will know, as the cameras pan the faces of the leaders, that their minds will soon be on other matters. In that they will not be alone. In an ever connected, always busy society, it remains to be seen how many of us will take the time today to fall silent and remember.

Certain conflicts inevitably call up certain well-worn images. A photograph of the trenches brings to mind the First World War. For the Falklands it is the sight of Royal Marines yomping across a rugged landscape, flag flying.

Vietnam has its helicopters and napalm; the first Iraq war burning oilfields; the second the night bombing of Baghdad and the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein. By such means do we try to reduce seismic events to manageable form.

For VE Day the picture of choice is an easy one, or at least it seems to be judging by how many times a variation of it is wheeled out. The scene is usually Trafalgar Square in London. Conga lines try to snake their way through the crowds, but the place is so packed it is difficult to move anywhere, save into the willing arms of strangers. Every lamppost and statue that can be climbed has been climbed. Drink has been taken. The fountains are full of paddlers. Women are everywhere, partying as hard as the men.

This looks like a country which truly has been all in it together, come through the worst, and is intensely grateful for that.

The reality, of course, was more complex. Thornier. Central London, then as now, was about as representative of the UK as the royal family is of the average British family.

For every person who was partying in Trafalgar Square or taking part in a street celebration there were others who chose to mark the day quietly, in mourning, knowing their loved ones would not be returning.

In other families, children were preparing to welcome home strangers they would soon be calling dad. Lives had been thrown up in the air, wives separated from husbands, sons and daughters from mothers and fathers, and the pieces would not always land neatly.

It is now accepted the trauma inflicted on society by the First World War took decades and generations to ease. After the Second World War, however, it is assumed everyone came home and picked up their lives no questions asked, no problems presented. The VE Day party over, it was time to crack on as normal. For many it was not that simple.

And what a country our average average man and woman came home to. Homes unfit for heroes. A health service where treatment depended not on need but ability to pay. Work that was hard, dirty, and uncertain. Rationing. A welfare state, such as it was, that treated poverty as a crime to be punished. A ruling class which believed it had a near divine right to govern.

Yet while nothing appeared to have changed, everything had. Two months after that party in Trafalgar Square, the country went to the polls, just as it has this week. Out went Churchill and the Tories and in came Clement Attlee and Labour on a landslide.

Given the choice of facing the future with Labour or staying mired in the past with the Conservatives, the people spoke. Make that roared. When it comes to defining the achievements of the greatest generation, surely having the foresight and bravery to throw out the old order and welcome in the new has to be high up the list.

This was the spirit of "never again" being put into action, and every generation since has had cause to thank those who defied the fear-mongers and took a punt on change.

What would the greatest generation think of a society that in the 21st century, with vast riches to call upon, was home to food banks? What would it think of privatisation of the NHS, transport, utilities, the loss of social housing? They would think we had flogged the family silver for pennies, and they would be right.

There will be no such narrative running through the official VE Day celebrations of course, but it is what more than a few will be thinking.

Those same folk might also ponder, during the services of thanksgiving in particular, how a world that vowed never to go to war in such a way again has been witness to decades of conflict and upheaval in which millions more lives have been lost.

The Trafalgar Square seen in those VE Day celebrations was, after all, the same venue that would be packed, almost 60 years later, with protesters saying no to any invasion of Iraq, only to have their views ignored by the government of the day. What value democracy then?

The partygoers of 1945 could not have imagined the Europe of today, its peace and prosperity. They would have trouble understanding why, having benefited so much from a union of European nations, Britain should want to withdraw from it.

Adding further to their puzzlement would be the notion that, on May 9, when Russia celebrates its Victory Day, representatives of the UK and US will not be present. The indispensable ally of 1945 has today become dispensable.

Back to those black and white photos of deliriously happy folk. A world and a time so different from our own, yet so similar in many ways. The greatest generation did their bit. Our task is to stop letting them down.