Studying our national character and current malaise has convinced me that the root cause of Britain’s problems is that we are too nice. Compared with our nearest European neighbours, let alone with most other countries in the world, being British automatically confers a series of characteristics not generally shared elsewhere. For a start we are polite. We do not shove ahead of other people in queues like the Italians, nor do we scream obscenities at random strangers in the street as they do in New York, and buying a cup of coffee is not regarded as a personal insult by cafés staff, as it is in Paris, for example.
We help old ladies and blind people across busy streets, we give up seats to pregnant women and the disabled without being asked to do so, and we put our hands up and calmly and quietly await the microphone if we want to put a question to politicians or celebrities at public meetings.
Life (outside London) is still pretty safe. You are unlikely to be gunned down or stabbed by killers unless you belong to a gang, if only because guns are hard to obtain and cannot be bought over the counter at the supermarket as they can in the United States. It is true that you can buy knives and machetes via the internet here, but if you are not in a gang then you should still be OK.
Our centuries-old liberal political traditions mean that we do not go in for civil wars like the Spanish, votes are counted fairly in elections, and you can call your MP an idiot to their face without risking having your door kicked in at 3 a.m. and being dragged away, never to be seen again. We do not carry an insupportable burden of guilt because our grandparents’ generation exterminated millions of people like the Germans, and we have not experienced multiple revolutions, republics, foreign conquests and slaughters like the French.
If you are detained for some reason by the police you will not be beaten senseless with rubber truncheons, have your toenails pulled out, or be stripped and have electrodes attached to your genitals by thuggish brutes in uniform. If you are charged with almost any offence you will be released on bail and remain free for months until your trial, when, if you employ a clever lawyer, you will be acquitted by a sympathetic jury or given a suspended sentence by an understanding judge.
If you are born British or acquire our citizenship by some other means you will be educated for free by the benevolent state and have your health looked after (also for free) from cradle to grave. If you fall on hard times and are unable to support yourself and your family by working, worry not – that same state will pay for your food, clothing and shelter. You will even be provided with such services without having to produce a hefty bribe for the officials with whom you are dealing.
Only in Britain have we accidentally evolved a society in which the worst sides of the human beast are indulged, encouraged and subsidised
Whatever the state of your sexuality you will be tolerated and even celebrated. If you are gay, you will not be thrown from a high building in Britain but encouraged to parade proudly through the streets on frequent occasions, embracing your partner or any obliging passer-by. If you are born female you will not be forced to wear a mask around your head, nor compelled to marry a cousin or elderly uncle when you reach puberty. If you are born male but feel that you should be female you will be given drugs and surgery to facilitate your transition to the gender of your choice. Only if your tastes run to bestiality or necrophilia are you liable to get into trouble with the law.
But the problem with this state of affairs is that real life and human nature are not like this demi-paradise, and nor is the rest of the world. Only in Britain have we accidentally evolved a society in which the worst sides of the human beast are indulged, encouraged and subsidised, while the angels of our better nature are ridiculed, disapproved of or downright persecuted.
This is why the state of affairs that I have described above is rapidly eroding and we are reverting to the chaotic condition that is the norm in most of the rest of the world. Our polite, reasonable and restrained Britain – the envied circumstances of a law-abiding and gentle culture that drew millions of less fortunate souls to our shores – will soon be history.
Of course that history is studded with discreditable episodes such as the Irish potato famine or the Amritsar massacre, and the Irish and Indians might quarrel with the rosy picture that I have painted. But broadly speaking, even British imperialism meant the rule of law, an attempt to provide justice, education and healthcare; mostly order and fairness replaced anarchy or despotism.
At the end of the 19th century that wicked old imperialist rogue Cecil Rhodes rightly opined that to be born British was to ‘have drawn the winning ticket in the lottery of life’. That lucky state of affairs has gone for good, and we will all be living in a far worse world as a result of its loss.
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