Great Britain – a lament

What happened to us?

Sometimes there seem to be good questions without any answers.

After the British Defence Secretary, John Healey, resigned saying the proposed defence investment budget was not enough to keep my country safe, I did a few media interviews.

I was in Ukraine as it happened, teaching a wonderfully impressive, inspiring group of Ukrainian military about Strategic Communications planning. After an existential struggle already longer than World War One they know all about the cost in blood and treasure of not having defences strong enough to deter an adversary.

So the initial shockwaves of Healey’s resignation and his assertion Britain’s defences were too small to keep us safe were well merited. Not long before a former boss of mine, George Robertson, once NATO Secretary General, previously also a Labour Defence Secretary and author of the current government’s own defence review had warned of a ‘corrosive complacency’ over British defence.

One of the interviews was set for the early evening and as requested, I was ready at the top of the hour.

What followed first though was 14 minutes on the general excitement anticipating the World Cup, with the opening ceremony and Mexico v South Africa match scheduled later that night. Nothing had actually happened. However, we did a tour of watch parties in Jo’burg (they were very excited), Mexico City (so were they), the stadium (you can guess) and sundry other spots with everyone really, really looking forward to it (not to mention, excited).

Then we did three minutes on ‘other news’ i.e. Britain’s defences being too weak to keep us safe.

Now, I’m no innocent nor naïve on how news happens – I was a journalist for over two decades. I’ve always known the media’s supposed commitment to what’s important as opposed to what’s supposedly interesting is, let’s say, somewhat conditional.

But all the same.

It brought irresistibly to mind (and not for the first time) that saying about how the Roman Emperors kept their populace quiescent through ‘bread and circuses’, a phrase famously first used by Juvenal, the 1^st century Roman poet, “Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”

In this context, the circus is obvious enough, as for the bread, then make your choice, but basically it is surely reflected in our unwillingness to make any form of compromise on other spending in all sorts of areas except defence. Of maybe even raise taxes. But it’s also the government that has abdicated its duties. For all the (very) occasional fine words there has been no sustained effort by Starmer and Co to change the mindset of the electorate, to alert them about the very real threats we face and the hard choices that inevitably follow.

When asked, they say it’s a priority, but what they say (not very often) and what they (don’t) do demonstrates otherwise – they are not even trying to make the case. As Lord Robertson puts it, ‘corrosive complacency’, or maybe dereliction of duty as I could also suggest.

It all comes at a time when the public mood is febrile, and the general gloom can almost be touched – hence the electorate generally thrashing around for something different. They know things are not right, but what is it, and what to do about? And some of what’s happened as a result is shameful. It’s quite hard to be proud of our country right now.

As I pondered this, I remembered another time – another circus maybe, but one of a very different tenor and meaning. Of promise, not diversion.

I am thinking of the London 2012 Summer Olympics, and one day in particular that many recall as Super Saturday. In 44 astonishing, uplifting minutes in the Olympic stadium Great Britain’s athletes won three gold medals. But it wasn’t just their success, it was the whole context. After all, GB had already won three golds that day in the rowing and cycling.

No it was those three, in that stadium, that shouted out somehow, ‘Peak Britain’ – this is what we were meant to be. A week before, the opening ceremony had not just been spectacular but highlighted and symbolised our history and aspirations with humour and panache.

Now it came to life in three people who symbolised what we could be/should be.

There was Jessica Ennis in the heptathlon. Charismatic, the team’s golden girl, the mixed-race child of a white mother and Jamaican father, born in Sheffield, one of Britain’s traditional northern cities. No privileged background, just talent and grit.

Then there was long jumper Greg Rutherford. Not privileged either and as traditionally British as they come, with two of his ancestors even playing for Arsenal. If Jessica was from a historic Northern city, then Greg was from the south, born in Britain’s most emblematic post-war new town, Milton Keynes.

And finally of course, Mo Farah. An immigrant, born in Somalia, illegally trafficked into Britain aged nine, and as proud a Brit as could be. Asked about competing for Britain rather than Somalia he once said, “Listen mate, this my country. This is where I come from and when I put on a Great Britain vest I am proud. I am very proud.”

You couldn’t make it up. 44 minutes, three gold medals, won by a cross-section of Brits that ticked every box of what we are at our best. All cheered to the rafters by a largely British crowd who made no distinction between ‘white’ Rutherford, mixed race Ennis and immigrant Farah. In 2012, on that evening, I hoped I had seen a symbol of my country and its future.

And now?

An increasingly polarised nation, quick to rage, divided amongst itself, huge numbers of our young signed off sick and out of work, immigrants an all-purpose target, rabble rousers on our streets. We seem lost. Meanwhile we are in denial about our state and what needs to be done in an increasingly dangerous world.

In 2012 the band Elbow’s song, ‘One Day Like This’ symbolised our Olympics and was played at the closing ceremony:

Oh, anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

Throw those curtains wide!

One day like this a year would see me right

What happened to us?