Thursday evening is an eventful one here for myself and possibly a celebration of British values. Something that happens (on varying days of course not everything happens on a thursday) from Lands end in the people’s republic of Cornwall all the way up to the very Scottish Shetland Islands in the far North East.
This is the age old practice of popping to your local pub with your mates, paying a pound, taking a sheet and a pen and spending two or three hours bickering over questions posed by a popular local guy acting as quiz master for the chance to win a sizable cash prize of between £50 – £250. Ladies and Gents welcome to the world of the pub quiz. Something that is rivaled only by Trivial Pursuit (or dispute) for its ability to divide and unite in equal almost simultaneous measure.
After this however we usually move on to another pub or bar and perform that more international of institutions: putting the world to rights. And here, again across from the UK, we see the trait of modern Britain which I would call Hancock syndrome. Tony Hancock was a British comedian/actor who was a fixture of British TV around the same time Phil Silvers was doing Sgt Bilko. Hancock’s show was called “Hancock’s half hour” and depicted Tony Hancock as a depressed, cynical and jaded actor who you could say was the Larry David of the 1950s and 60s.
And really much of Tony Hancock’s character was a depressing portent of what was to come. Britain is trapped in a downward spiral of cynical depression. The nations that make up the United Kingdom are united in one thing: the party is over. The Scots aren’t sure that their economic and cultural revival can be sustained, the Welsh can’t really be sure that they’ll ever be able to fully assert themselves as an equal partner in British politics, both northern and southern Ireland suffer from paraylsis political and/or economic and the English just don’t know what to believe anymore. This is reflected in the conversations I have on a regular basis with a wide variety of people. We’re not really going to get out of this mess, we’re not really a great power any more, maybe we should let others take the lead, we don’t really do all that much anymore and so on. The message is always overwhelmingly negative.
On national identity you’re either not celebrating it enough if you’re in Scotland or theres a debate about why we should celebrate it at all in England. Many English have always been a reserved lot when it comes to outward pride in ones culture (give or take 50 years between the 1890s and the 1930s) but the depressed state of Britain’s lot in the current economic crisis with the emphasis on celebrating everyone else almost inevitably leads to a cultural crisis as well.
This means that when the prickly subject of the St George’s cross (which is England’s national flag) and St George’s day comes about you get this rather squeamish and frankly embarrasing reaction of people looking around uncomfortably and saying “well..erm..we..uh..don’t really celebrate it though, do we?” This reaction tends to confuse and dismay in equal measure those who visit the UK from abroad. Up until recently London had a Mayor who refused to have a St Georges day celebration because “we don’t do that kind of thing here”. Could you imagine the Mayor of Dublin refusing to celebrate St Partricks day?
But this is all part of a general malaise afflicting the peoples of the British Isles and everyone suffers in equal measure. So it makes me almost ashamed that when you look across to America, a country almost as worse off as we are, a country where a previous disease can black list you from any kind of quality healthcare and where the minimum wage is pratically a joke you see such optimism and hope. Yes they’re scared of anything that moves and yes they’re furious with the powers that be but they believe that they can change that and get out of this mess.
We don’t even have that. In a way the only thing we believe is that we’re doomed and there is no redemption. In fact its even worse: we believe we’re stuck in a neverending purgatory of political graft and mismanagement, busy body administration, ruled by unaccountable European overlords where nobody really is sure who exactly we are and what our legacy will be. The bizarre thing is that in a way we’re escaping that. I can point to the fact that despite apocalyptic visions of Sterling matching parity with the Euro or the UK losing its gold plated AAA loan status or a major breakdown in Britain’s economy none of that has happened and although it could still happen we shouldn’t let that hang over us.
Britain has been here before many times. We’ve devalued Sterling more times than Michael Schumacher has won the F1 world championship. We’re probably the only major top flight G7 nation to go to the IMF for an emergency loan. We’ve borrowed from everyone and we’ve defaulted in equal measure. We’ve been the sick man, poor man, beggarman and even the dead man of Europe. Frankly we’ve been knocked down to the canvas more times in the 20th century than Frank Bruno and Ricky Hatton combined but every time we’ve bounced back, we’ve gotten back up and we’ve touched gloves for the next round.
What part of that do we seem to fail to understand? Why do we play ourselves into the game only to talk ourselves out of it in a depressing act of self capitulation? We’ve talked ourselves out of a major role in world diplomacy to the point where we’re chuffed if we manage to host a conference on the Yemen and everybody came. Yes, we have our history of being a Colonial power but that should not prevent us from speaking out about crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe or corruption and abuses of power in Nigeria or speaking out on Burma or even demanding reform and democracy in Pakistan.
When Chris Patten was demanding democracy in a post-British Hong Kong in the 1990s he was shouted down by people apparently ashamed of our history (egged on by the totalitarian government in China of course) that he had no right to make such assertions and that by saying that he was being hypocritical and arrogant. Well ladies and gentlemen, if demanding that the people have the right to elect the government and officials of their choosing free from intimidation or manipulation makes me an imperialist arrogant Brit then sir I am guilty as charged! But it is precisely that fear that prevents us from doing just that. Today Chris Patten is feted as a hero in Hong Kong and over here just another idiot Brit pretending to be Viceroy.
So as you see, from the domestic to the economic to abroad, Britain is suffering from a crisis of confidence in itself but manages to muddle through anyway.
I guess thats something to be proud of.
