All my life I have been told that Britain is in decline. But stand back and take a long, hard look. Even by relative standards, it just is not true. We have recently overtaken France (again) as the fifth largest economy in the world and are closing on Germany. We have the fourth largest defence budget in the world, devoted largely to peace-keeping. We disproportionately contribute to the world’s literature, art, music, technology and science. We have won some 123 Nobel prizes, more than any other country bar America (and more per capita than America), and we continue to win them, with 18 in this century so far. In the field of genetics, we discovered the structure of DNA, invented DNA fingerprinting, pioneered cloning and contributed 40 per cent of the first sequencing of the human genome. On absolute measures, we are in even better shape. In 1965. In 1965, three million households lacked or shared an inside loo, most houses did not have central heating, many didnt have instant hot water and twice as many people as today had no access to a car. When they did it was expensive, unreliable, leaked oil and spewed lead tainted fumes. Compared with many other countries, we have enviable opportunities ahead of us. We are sitting on one of the world’s largest shale-gas fields. Our economy is growing faster than any other in the western world. Unemployment is falling faster than anybody predicted and is less than half that of France, a quarter than Spain. According to the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Index, published last month, we are the most entrepreneurial country in Europe and the fourth most entrepreneurial in the world, our highest-ever ranking. Don’t forget Britains natural advantages: a Goldilocks climate with none of the brutal cold or blistering heat that many countries experience at one season or another. Enough rain to keep the country green throughout the year, unlike most countries, but not so much (overall) as to annoy. And sufficiently unpredictable weather to be worth talking about, unlike in many countries! Plus a huge variety of landscapes crammed into a small land area and an amazingly rich architectural heritage. In short, we have an economy to rival America in a culture to rival Italy on a landscape to rival France with social cohesion to rival Germany. Then we have a democratic tradition as strong as any in the world and an adherence to defending liberty that — for all the threats — is still far more robust than most people in the world can experience. And to cap it all, a brilliantly neutral and beneficent head of state who this coming September becomes our longest reigning monarch. There is one giant fly in the ointment that cannot be avoided: Britains huge and rapidly growing national debt, alongside personal debt. Rightly, that will obsess us in an election year. Even so, let’s pause at New Year to contemplate what might go right in Britain rather than what might be wrong with it.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 07:24:48 +0000
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