Down with declinism | 14 March 2010

Everywhere you turn, it is hard to escape the sirens of decline. Their song echoes through Coffee House: “Buy supplies”, they sing, “take the kids out of schools, close down the hatches – for Britain is going under, broken beyond repair, stuck in a rot from which it cannot escape, while the weaklings of yesteryear (like China and Brazil) roam free on the land that our forbears toiled.” Next month, they will take the stage at a Spectator Debate.
 
I have even succumbed to their sentiment. It is easy to do. The vicissitudes of Britain’s military operations, the failure of the nation’s elite, the short-sighted over-reliance on the City of London and the downward pressure of the numbers — whether those measuring Britain’s economic output or other social indicators  makes optimism difficult to sustain. Britain still maintains one of the world’s largest defense budgets and most capable armies. But most defence scholars I speak to are convinced that the political elite, from left to right, have yet to face up to the cost-cutting required and that Britain will, in future, be more aligned with traditionally lower-spending continental powers than the US.