"In the UK, national morale feels all but shot. Politics commands little faith. Ditto the media. The idea that, as a country, we still have enough in common to carry us through the idea embedded in Britain's once potent Churchillian myth feels increasingly threadbare. Welcome, in short, to the Britain of the mid-1980s. That Britain often felt like a broken nation in a broken world, very much as Britain often does in the mid-2020s."
"But and here's the point that needs to be grasped those moods did not endure. Not everything was broken. With effort and tough judgment, we managed to get out of that place; imperfectly, because life is always imperfect; sometimes at a cost, though sometimes with reward; but nevertheless in real and significant ways. So the question is whether we can do something of the same kind now. I know we must. I also think we can."
Britain in the mid-2020s mirrors the mid-1980s mood of crisis, with low national morale, weak trust in politics and media, and a fraying shared national identity. The mid-1980s featured widespread feelings of being a broken nation amid global disorder, yet those moods did not last. Recovery required effort and tough judgment and produced imperfect but significant improvements, sometimes at cost and sometimes with reward. The question remains whether similar national remedies can be applied now. Generational memory fades, making past decades such as the 1980s less well understood, even as their lessons retain relevance.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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