There's Not Much Great Aboiut Britain - debate in which I and Will Self spoke on the same side

Submitted by LocutusOP on Tue, 02/11/2020 - 21:31
Author: 

Joshua Wooderson , Kevin 1 , : Peter Starr, Tony Archer , Michael Wood , Martin,   Anthony Archer      

Date: 
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 - 21:30
Article link: 
There's Not Much Great Aboiut Britain - debate in which I and Will Self spoke on the same side

 

Even accepting the pessimistic partnership's (Hitchens and Self, a duo that sounds like a firm of Victorian lawyers or a publishing house) views on our relative decline as a nation, I still think we have a strong claim to being 'great'.

1) We are one of the wealthiest nations both on Earth and in human history.
2) We enjoy governance that is remarkably stable and free of corruption, again by both the standards of other countries and world history.
3) We enjoy (to a very large, if not optimal, degree) freedom of association, enterprise, religion, and expression
4) We have, for a small island, an unusually rich culture, whether viewed in terms of literature, art, music, science, religion or philosophy
5) Most of our towns and cities still have many fine and well-preserved buildings, despite the combined efforts of the Luftwaffe, post-war architects and planning committees
6) We have a temperate climate which, though often slightly miserable, means we are generally free from droughts, monsoons and natural disasters
7) Our national character is, if such generalisations can be made, one of tolerance, politeness, gentle irony and self-deprecation,

Posted by: Joshua Wooderson | 03 February 2020 at 12:35 PM

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@ Joshua Wooderson

That's an excellent description of the current state of affairs and I agree with it 100%. To take just one of those examples you raise, tho se post-war architects and town planners have done more to ruin my own city of Manchester than the Luftwaffe ever managed to do, but none of them ever came close to destroying our Mancunian spirit.

Posted by: Kevin 1 | 03 February 2020 at 05:19 PM

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Dear Mr Wooderson,
In everyday Britain, because of the bad behaviour of our fellow-British, we have wall-to-wall CCTV, car alarms, personal alarms, razor wire, self-defence courses for women, locked country churches, suspicion of strangers, unusually high insurance costs, huge NHS expenditure on the drunk and stoned, nighttime heat sensors in parks, DBS safeguarding, and much other, similar wretchedness.
When these things cease to be so necessary, come back and talk to us about how great we are.

Posted by: Peter Starr | 03 February 2020 at 06:07 PM

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Further to Peter Starrs obsevations the expression "compared to what" comes to mind.Yes there was a time when all these liberty threatening impositions were not necessary , we had regardless of material compensations a thing called common decency , so the new expression for the complacent is "wake up and smell the cannabis".

Posted by: Tony Archer | 04 February 2020 at 11:05 AM

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In the Britain of my childhood country churches (an most people's houses) were not locked. I was pleased to find low-levels of crime where I lived in Bavaria in the 1990s. It's not to do with perfection. 'Great', as Mr Archer points out, is relative.

Posted by: Peter Starr | 04 February 2020 at 06:46 PM

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Can't we differentiate somewhat . Surely we can't claim to be "Great" if the conditions we all enjoy and feel are "Great" are not underpinned by the principles that produced that "Greatness".Its the direction of travel and maintenance of position that is important, just as a spoilt child will often benefit from the hard won position of their competent and wealthy parents it will of itself struggle to reproduce the conditions it has benefited from..................Yes "Great Britain" a spoilt adolescent .

Posted by: Tony Archer | 05 February 2020 at 12:30 PM

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Britain, historically, has enjoyed (and still does) an extraordinary position of leading excellence in the history of the known world.
It has excelled socially, financially, industrially, militarily and morally above all others - before or since.
Its dominance, influence and power, considering its size, is as equally incomparable to any other – including the Romans.
Notwithstanding the last 40 years of lunatic leadership, Britain was, is and always will be, Great.
It’s all about faith!

Posted by: Michael Wood | 05 February 2020 at 04:41 PM

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There's not much great because it has mostly been destroyed by the twerps who've been running things for the past 30 years. Much like in America now where they have Mr. Make America Great Again being dragged through the courts on trumped up charges. Not that I like Trump in any way but his opponents remind me of the childish politicians we have here, far more concerned about telling us how bad their opponents are and trying to personally descredit them rather than actually focusing on what they bring to the table in the way of anything productive or worthwhile to the people they are supposed to serve. Could it be that this is because their own offering is so pathetic that it isn't worth mentioning, assuming of course that they do actually have some policies as opposed to all of the bluster and name calling theatrics they deem so essential to our lives? The bottom line is, people are bored of this rubbish now, what they want is solutions to fix the real life problems they face, not silly gossip about who the President slept with in 1990 or what Boris Johnson gets up to in his flat after work.

Posted by: Martin | 05 February 2020 at 10:35 PM

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Fair enough.....Britain is "Great". I can ensconse myself in the apparent bubble of self-confirming belief.

Posted by: Anthony Archer | 06 February 2020 at 09:37 AM

 

Own comment: 

The attitude of the "Britain is great" crowd in the comments section - and generally - seems to be "Britain is great no matter what we do, whatever the details!"

The only really good analysis is that by  Tony Archer:

 

Can't we differentiate somewhat . Surely we can't claim to be "Great" if the conditions we all enjoy and feel are "Great" are not underpinned by the principles that produced that "Greatness".Its the direction of travel and maintenance of position that is important, just as a spoilt child will often benefit from the hard won position of their competent and wealthy parents it will of itself struggle to reproduce the conditions it has benefited from..................Yes "Great Britain" a spoilt adolescent .