| And the rest of the world goes, "meh..." This is part of a trend: the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution lost most of it's manufacturing industry, the nation that once championed free trade is cloistering itself on Brexit, the inventors of football (a.k.a. soccer) are falling behind on the World Cup, the nations that once were vassals to the British Empire are drifting away from the Commonwealth, and Scotland ... Well, it kinda looks like Great Britain is becoming less Great each passing decade. In World War I, four empires collapsed: czarist Russia, Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian and the British Empire. The Austrians already accepted it. The Russians and Turks are refusing desperately to accept it. The British didn't even notice it. |
I'm a brit and unfortunately I think you're broadly right. I wish my children were growing up in a more confident society that looks outward and forward, not inwards and to the past.
The current government wants the uk to be an "powerhouse" (or whatever the latest slogan is) for AI, EVs, biotech, etc. But they're stuck in a view of the world that is somewhere between nostalgic nationalism and outright nativism. And pumping out constant culture-war paranioa about "immigrants" and betrayal.
So we get brexit - an economic catastrophe - and their desperate need to be seen to be competing rather than collaborating on science research. Non-uk students avoid our universities because they can't get visas or because they're actively harrassed by the government once they're here. Scientists leave the UK for countries where they can get grants and decent equipment and actually do collaborative research.
Meanwhile we build useless aircraft carriers that we can't afford to operate, and stage bread and circuses pagents in London - while the food banks have never been busier, and huge numbers of people grind away in poverty. But the important thing is that we're good at tradition and we have history.
The country's industrial and scientific base is decaying, as is its infrastructure outside of the London bubble, and none of the grifters and fantasists running the country have a clue. I'll be advising my kids to emigrate.