“What experience and history teach is this – that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”

(Georg Wilhem Freidrich Hegel, Lectures On The Philosophy Of History, seen in The Guardian Weekend magazine, 11/10/08)

Or as my friend Gary said recently while we were setting the world to rights over an ale or two:

“The only lesson learnt… is that no lessons have been learnt”