The real truth about Britain’s second Elizabethan age? It’s been 70 years of dismal decline — RT World News

There’s little doubt that Queen Elizabeth II is a superb monarch, maybe one of many best Britain has ever seen. 

To place her lengthy reign in perspective, she ascended to the throne solely seven years after the top of the Second World Conflict, and Winston Churchill was her first prime minister. Her dedication to responsibility and to her persons are past reproach, and, because of this, her jubilee can be met with a swathe of celebratory tv documentaries and information articles. 

However let’s not idiot ourselves. Though she has been a powerful monarch, her time on the throne has been one among steep British decline, and a far cry from the fantastic first Elizabethan age within the sixteenth century.

This reign of Elizabeth I, from 1558 to 1603, is considered a ‘golden age’ for Britain, one among financial prosperity, technological development, and international exploration.  She inherited an unstable kingdom, one divided by faith, growing poverty, and beset with highly effective international enemies. 

Beneath the steerage of its shrewd ‘Virgin Queen’, nonetheless, England emerged as a world energy capable of sort out its outward and inside foes. Her achievements included the restoration of England to Protestantism, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Royal Navy’s defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, which laid the foundations for Britain to go on to ‘rule the waves’. Certainly, with regards to the navy, it might be argued that the second Elizabethan interval represents the undoing of the primary.    

When her namesake grew to become Queen in February 1952, Britain was probably the most highly effective nations on the planet; alongside the US and the Soviet Union, it was thought-about one of many ‘Huge Three’. Britain’s energy was augmented later that very same yr, when it grew to become a nuclear energy.

On the time, Britain was spending 11.2 p.c of GDP on its armed forces, but this determine at the moment has shrunk to a mere 2.3 p.c. In 1952, Britain had a standing military of 871,000. This now stands at 82,000 and is because of be lowered to 72,500 by 2025. This isn’t actually a military, however a corps.    

It’s the identical with the Royal Navy. Within the Fifties, Britain had a navy worthy of policing the oceans. There have been 280 lively ships in 1950 and 12 plane carriers. By 2020, nonetheless, the Royal Navy solely had seventy lively vessels, with solely two plane carriers. Certainly, if coastal patrol vessels are excluded, the variety of ships within the Royal Navy has declined by round 74 p.c because the Falklands Conflict of 1982. By any measure, this will solely be construed as army decline.

One of many causes the army was so sturdy was that Britain had an empire that stretched the size and breadth of the globe. India, often known as the ‘Jewel within the Crown’ of the British Empire, had been misplaced in 1947, however there have been nonetheless giant swathes of Africa and the Caribbean beneath British rule. But, inside a decade, these colonies had disappeared, and Britain shrunk on the worldwide stage. 

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I’m not making an argument in favour of colonialism, however the truth that Britain was ready to desert – or “scuttle” as Churchill put it – her empire in such a rush solely serves to focus on the nation’s quickly diminishing standing. Certainly, as Dean Acheson, the previous US secretary of state, mentioned in 1962, “Nice Britain has misplaced an empire however not but discovered a task.”

Instead, British politicians in that interval regarded to the continent to seek out that new position. Within the Seventies, Britain was mockingly known as “the sick man of Europe,” with justification. Unemployment was working at greater than one million for the primary time because the Nice Despair, and the nation was torn asunder by industrial motion, leading to common energy outages and the introduction of a three-day working week. It was from this place of weak spot that Britain joined the European Financial Group (EEC) in 1973, a meek acceptance of its lowered standing.

The decline of Britain is greatest highlighted by the collapse of its manufacturing. It was as soon as known as “the workshop of the world,” however not. Because the Sixties, British manufacturing has been decimated by industrial motion, inept authorities insurance policies, and international competitors. Britain has posted a commerce deficit in items yearly since 1983, and we’re hardly making something anymore. The market in items has lengthy since been ceded to Asia. In consequence, complete communities in northern England and Wales have been blighted with excessive unemployment and the social issues that circulation from that. 

One of many penalties of de-industrialisation and the break-up of communities has been a steep rise in crime. Within the Fifties, there have been solely round 500,000 recorded crimes a yr, but by 2003, this determine had reached an eye-watering six million. The homicide price has additionally exploded, with 600 homicides recorded in 2021, in comparison with a mere twenty-seven in 1952.

One thing has clearly gone incorrect with British society, and it’s troublesome to pinpoint the precise causes, though de-industrialisation, the collapse of faith, and the breakdown of the household have all contributed. Britain in 2022 is a far much less protected, and a far much less good, place to dwell than the Britain of 1952.   

Elizabeth II might have been an iconic monarch and represents all the pieces that’s left that’s good about Britain. Nonetheless, the second Elizabethan interval has not been a ‘golden age’ like the primary. Removed from it. That is under no circumstances her fault: she is a constitutional monarch with no actual energy, in contrast to her namesake. The fault as an alternative lies with politicians – significantly the 14 prime ministers who’ve served throughout her time – who’ve let each the Queen and her individuals down for many years. 

Regardless that we can be inundated with articles within the coming weeks and months about Queen Elizabeth’s wonderful 70-year interval on the throne, I assure that future historians won’t be so variety once they write about Britain’s ‘Age of Decline’ that occurred on her watch.