What happened to Britain?

[expat]

Yes and all empires follow the same pattern - the period of national "hardness" which enabled the wealth and prosperity is followed by a period of decadence and decline. Wasn't it Gibbon who said this latter period is the best time to live in a former empire - you have the benefit of residual wealth without the responsibilities of earning it. We are clearly in that time - it's our children who'll bear the brunt of the decline.

That's pretty much what Peter Jenkins said, though that wasn't his point; that was the fact of the decline itself. He was not so much Gibbon as Cassandra.

[sasguru]

Right. And I suppose the curse of empire is that the imperial country keeps thinking that (a) their "genius" is what will always win through, and (b) the empire is good for them and it, or at least a sense of influence, must be preserved; so blinded, it fails to take the steps needed to survive and prosper.

Yes and all empires follow the same pattern - the period of national "hardness" which enabled the wealth and prosperity is followed by a period of decadence and decline. Wasn't it Gibbon who said this latter period is the best time to live in a former empire - you have the benefit of residual wealth without the responsibilities of earning it. We are clearly in that time - it's our children who'll bear the brunt of the decline.

[expat]

All empires at the top assume that they will stay there forever, ascribing their greatness not to an accident of history (due to the confluence, by luck, of many favourable factors), but to innate superiority (look at the Romans before and the Americans now). By the time they realise they are not really better than anyone else it's too late - the rest have caught and overtaken them.
Interestingly this myth of national greatness still exists - Gordon Brown used it in his recent speech quoting "Britain's genius" and the Industrial revolution.
The reality is that we're a bankrupt country full of coping alcoholics and an under-educated populace that relies on ever declining centres of excellence.

Right. And I suppose the curse of empire is that the imperial country keeps thinking that (a) their "genius" is what will always win through, and (b) the empire is good for them and it, or at least a sense of influence, must be preserved; so blinded, it fails to take the steps needed to survive and prosper.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Crises ? What Crises ?

[sasguru]

All empires at the top assume that they will stay there forever, ascribing their greatness not to an accident of history (due to the confluence, by luck, of many favourable factors), but to innate superiority (look at the Romans before and the Americans now). By the time they realise they are not really better than anyone else it's too late - the rest have caught and overtaken them.
Interestingly this myth of national greatness still exists - Gordon Brown used it in his recent speech quoting "Britain's genius" and the Industrial revolution.
The reality is that we're a bankrupt country full of coping alcoholics and an under-educated populace that relies on ever declining centres of excellence.

[expat]

Was it the Tories that started the rot, New Labour, greedy lazy Chavs, greedy City bankers, war mongering world leaders... ?

What actually destroyed Britain in the end?

The decline has been going on for much longer than 25 years, arguably since Victorian times. It has been visible to some for at least 30 years. Journalist Peter Jenkins wrote quite a bit about it in the 1970s, including a memorable piece called something like "the map for Britain's journey to the third world", in which he commented that Britain would remain a comfortable place for most of us to live for some years to come, but consistently declining relative productivity would lead in the end to an absolute decline in real wealth. It has all pretty much happened that way.

[King Cnvt]

Was it the Tories that started the rot, New Labour, greedy lazy Chavs, greedy City bankers, war mongering world leaders... ?

What actually destroyed Britain in the end?

I found this on a blog comment:

British industry has been starved of investment by the banking sector, much better to speculate on non productive land and property.

These ******* have been raping the economy for the last 25 years, now all thats over for the time being they've wiped their cocks on the curtains and put out their hands for the cab fare home.