If Britain today were a cheesy Hollywood movie, the protagonist would be preparing to rally the good guys with one heck of a motivational speech for defeating the bad guys, taming the cataclysm, finding the missing, fixing the broken, stopping the rain and marrying the love interest.
Would such a call to arms be a table-thumper or a dignified delivery?
Certainly British Prime Ministers, at least over the past 40 years, prefer the dignified option upon first taking office before repairing a damaged country / political system / economy / society / environment / anything they think they can achieve before the next election campaign.
Margaret Thatcher in 1979 quoted from The Prayer of St Francis: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.”
When John Major succeeded her in 1990, he said, “I want to
see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is
confident, and a country that is prepared and willing to make the changes
necessary to provide a better quality of life for all our citizens.”
Seven years later, Tony Blair claimed, “… we have secured a mandate to bring this nation together, to unite us – one Britain, one nation in which our ambition for ourselves is matched by our sense of compassion and decency and duty towards other people.”
Gordon Brown usurped Blair in 2007 and said, “That is my mission – that if we can fulfil the potential and realise the talents of all our people, then I am absolutely sure that Britain can be the great global success story of this century.”
Emulating President John F Kennedy, David Cameron in 2010 declared, “I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain. One where we don't just ask what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities. One where we don't ask what am I just owed, but more what can I give.”
In 2016, Theresa May pledged “…we believe in a union not just between the nations of the United Kingdom but between all of our citizens, every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we’re from.”
And just last year, Boris Johnson said, “Everyone knows the values that flag represents. It stands for freedom and free speech and habeas corpus and the rule of law and above all it stands for democracy.”
No matter the words they use, or the progress they
subsequently make – or don’t make – their vision is consistent: a nation that
is more peaceful, united, inclusive, responsible, democratic and free.
Which is somewhere over the rainbow, where chimney pots taste of lemon drops …
Because, those individual aims have a habit of being contradictory; freedom in particular can compromise the rest. We are free in practise, if not in law, to:
- congregate with intent to intimidate, disrupt, vandalise, and wound;
- propagate inflammatory falsehoods through ignorance, political bias or for financial gain;
- undermine the democratic will of the people;
- claim the moral high ground then behave immorally;
- respond to difficult issues, guided by ‘public opinion’, and the likelihood of a gong;
- claim that free speech doesn’t apply to anyone with a different viewpoint;
- act as if the law and social responsibility only applies to everyone else.
In other words, Prime Ministers, for all their good intentions, cannot achieve Nirvana on their own. They need all the British people to step up and act responsibly and intelligently and bravely for the benefit of, well, all the British people.
But when you have the likes of the BBC, National Trust, Extinction Rebellion, BLM, house-building lobby, universities and students, Police and Judiciary, Church, senior civil servants, unelected Government quangos and advisers, extreme trans-lobbyists, militant unions, opportunistic politicians, gravy-trainers, etcetera, etcetera, working through the above bullet points as if it were a bucket list, then maybe it’s time for Prime Ministers to re-think their vision and re-prioritise democracy, responsibility – and the rule of law – over ‘freedom’, which is now an abused concept.
It’s not that we need new laws; we just need to implement the existing ones as they were intended.
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