The same, but worse

Man Who Thought He’d Lost All Hope About Britain Loses Last Additional Bit Of Hope He Didn’t Even Know He Still Had

My brand is pessimism so I’m wary of flogging it to death or becoming a parody of myself, but it’s hard not to feel a bit downcast about the direction of the country. Perhaps it’s just been an especially grim couple of weeks for Britain, with riots in Leeds, a soldier stabbed in Kent and the unimaginable horror in Southport, followed by the ugly mob scenes that followed. That this happened on the same evening as screaming crowds were seen in Southend running from a machete fight added to the sense of national fragility. This was followed, yesterday, by horrific scenes of widespread mob disorder across the country in which policemen and civilians were attacked, and businesses looted.

To those of a pessimistic persuasion, there is a common feeling that the country is crumbling and falling apart at the seams, and things are going to get worse. Perhaps Rishi Sunak’s seemingly reckless decision to maximise his chances of losing the election by going early was actually a work of genius.

As it happened I spent this week reading Dominic Sandbrooks’s Seasons in the Sun, the early chapters of which describe the crisis year of 1974 when many people felt Britain was disintegrating and even ready for a dictatorship. Perhaps 1974 was much worse - I will write about the comparisons in a later post - but what does feel familiar is the sense that the new people in charge haven’t any fresh ideas about how to turn this around. It’s just the same, but more.