1 - United Kingdom?

Summary

Fuckin failures in a country ay failures. It's nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They’re just wankers. We’re colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. (Welsh 1993: 78)

Post-war Britain has long been seen as a nation in decline: the loss of imperial territory and international clout from 1945 onwards undeniable and inexorable facts that exposed the fantasy that Britain remained a Great Power. That fantasy was still viable during conferences at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945 that set the boundaries for a new, Cold War, geography. The Suez Crisis of 1956 is an oft-recited marker of decline, exposing the myth of British imperial reach, and prompting US Secretary of State's Dean Acheson's crushing evaluation that Great Britain had lost an Empire but had not yet found a role. The 1980s might be read as slowing the pace of decline, the Thatcher government under its forthright, pro-American leader attempting to re-establish Britain's credentials on the world stage. Partly this was plausible because of the close personal relationship between Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan, whose 1984 ‘It's Morning Again In America’ election campaign, with its highly romanticised, faux-folksy celebration of traditional values and optimism, signalled a drive to re-establish American pre-eminence after the bruising years of the Carter administration. There was no equivalent upbeat electoral message from the Conservatives, although their 1979 slogan, ‘Don't just hope for a better life. Vote for one’, was a muted attempt at imitation. Thatcher openly supported Reagan's belligerent take on the Soviet Union and would claim a part in the winning of the Cold War. But the always-tenuous belief in a mutually beneficial ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Britain – originally fabricated by Winston Churchill – quickly faded once Reagan and Thatcher left the scene, John Major never enjoying such a close relationship with George H. W. Bush, or with Bill Clinton. Tony Blair, once he became prime minister in 1997, was able to buddy up to the equally young, telegenic centrist Clinton, but Blair was always, and obviously, the very junior partner. The ‘Great’ in Great Britain advertised past glories.