THE Monarchy, the Church of England, the Prime Minister, the Conservative Party, the police force, the Premiership, athletics, Concorde, the railways – all institutions that once did Britain proud, that aroused respect, admiration in the country and across the world, all racked by scandal or eaten away by decay.
Concorde – that gem of aeronautical engineering, of human ambition – at least got the dignity of a funeral as it touched down for the last time yesterday under the sad eyes of so many of its admirers. So many of the others are on the rack, carcasses laid out for the vulture pack to hack away at their rotting flesh.
What has happened to Britain? What is this malaise? Why is the country devouring itself? Is this the legacy of loss of Empire finally coming home to rest?
The Monarchy is being torn to shreds, caught between a farcical Edwardian reserve and a post-pop thirst for celebrity, trapped between a public desire to respect and a thirst for sordid revelations that can only breed contempt.
The CofE desperately tries to cling onto its position on the fence, losing congregations who want a more active, committed, absolute belief, while desperately trying to appear relevant and trendy to an ever more secular and cynical public.
The Prime Minister – a man who once appeared to know the pulse of the nation – now seems authoritarian, vulnerable, desperate.
The police force is exposed as a hotbed of racism, the Premiership has bred a crop of overpaid, arrogant brats, whose idea of entertainment appears to be binge drinking, group sex, nightclub brawls and offensive, often racist, behaviour. Athletics now seems to be teetering on the verge of an abyss of drug revelations.
As for the Conservatives and the railways… the less said the better.
Where are the role models? Is there anything left to believe in, anyone to look up to?
The link between these deflated institutions is their common attempt and ultimate failure to adapt and keep pace with rampant modernity, obsessed with driving change and eventually falling victim to it.
Monarchy, politicians and sport have all seen the potential of exploiting the rampant communications revolution, indeed have contributed to it. Monarchy saw the nation’s obsession with celebrity as a way to reinvent itself, politicians saw spin as the ultimate weapon, football courted the tabloids, made billions in media and sponsorship deals. Yet those who live by the sword…
In parallel, pure market forces were unleashed. Margaret Thatcher declared that society was dead, the individual was king, the market was everything. Her legacy has been profound. Concorde is not commercially viable: put it in a museum. The railways will be next. Do roads make money? Why not privatise them? Or close them down. The market dictates a footballer is worth £20 million. So be it, even if you create a monster.
These issues are all coming to a head. Society wants it all: icons to look up to and the right to instant iconoclasm. It laps up voyeurism and expects dignity. It’s the Big Brother society, which builds people up and wants to press the button to expel them from the house when it gets bored of their antics.
The technological revolution has prioritised the short-term, nay the instant. It’s time to return to a longer perspective before we get devoured.
