Britain’s True Imperial Hangover
“You are an Englishman and have subsequently drawn the greatest prize in the lottery of life” said Cecil Rhodes, a phrase which, were it used now, would conjure up a picture of a gammon-faced, bar-room bore propping up the 19th hole of a Home Counties Golf Club. Britain is after all, a “cake-filled, misery-laden, grey old island” in Emma Thompson’s formulation. Beyond its mere culinary and climactic infelicities, it is also indelibly marked by the sins of its past, slavery chief amongst them.
And yet, suggest to the average resident of Hampstead that the funding model of the BBC might not, in this internet age, be entirely appropriate, and you will be treated as if you had proposed that the Mona Lisa might be improved by the addition of a moustache. Argue anywhere in the country (outside the libertarian think tanks of Tufton Street) that the NHS might be slightly less than the Platonic ideal of healthcare systems, and you will be condemned as a heretic before being reminded how lucky you are to live under its beneficent care. Discuss the Civil Service, and you may gain the impression that “Rolls-Royce” is not a brand of motor car, but an adjective solely to be applied to Her Majesty’s bureaucrats.
It is striking how the “grey old island” has so many features which are not just good, but self-evidently so. It is also notable that while they are generally praised across the spectrum, it is the left which is loudest in its devotion. Scrapping the licence fee is a uniquely right wing interest, while at the age of 45, I am not old enough to remember an election at which Labour did not believe “there are only x weeks to save the NHS”. Living under Britain’s institutions seems remarkably similar to winning Rhodes’ lottery, even (or perhaps particularly) to those who profess that the country’s best days are behind her..
Britain certainly has much of which it can be proud. The City is, depending on the instrument you consider, the world’s greatest financial centre. Oxford is the world’s leading university while the other place manfully remains in the top 10. Any sport involving carbon fibre, a wind tunnel or preferably both will probably be dominated by Brits. We rightly celebrate these achievements, but they are achievements. We know that they are real. We have rankings. We have medals. We have evidence.
Our reverence for other institutions is built on rather flimsier ground. For every documentary produced by Sir David Attenborough or Simon Schama, the BBC broadcasts several episodes of Mrs Brown’s Boys. The NHS is not flooded by health tourists from Germany and Switzerland because they have their own, better services. The King’s Fund survey of the previous decade showed that the NHS was excellent in all categories, save the minor one of keeping people alive. In which it ranked last.
Data from NHS Resolution shows that in 2017/2018, it received 10,673 claims for damages due to negligence and paid out £2.2bn to settle disputes. Crossrail is three years overdue and more than £2bn over budget. Just recently, we have learned that thousands of Covid cases went missing because the civil servants in charge of gathering the data did not understand how an Excel spreadsheet works.
It is a truism that, in our system, “Advisers advise and Ministers decide”, but this can only take us so far. While it is useful for politicians of both parties to blame their opposite numbers when something goes wrong, it is not Matt Hancock who is responsible when Mrs Smith dies on the operating table or she catches one of the nosocomial infections which cost the NHS £1bn annually. Equally, no Culture Secretary commissioned Pets Win Prizes, the BBC did.
And yet, because of the reverence we have for these institutions, we never ask the hard questions. We start from the assumption that they are good, so the only reason for their failure must be malign external influences. The NHS is by definition brilliant, so any issue that afflicts it must be due to a lack of funding (if the Conservatives are in power), or mismanagement (if it’s Labour’s turn). The Civil Service is full of the “best and brightest”, so if something goes wrong, it must be the fault of the Ministers, as if the Health Secretary personally made the decision to store Covid data on a particular computer system.
If British exceptionalism exists today, it is surely in this. No Greek will hold up either the state broadcaster or the health system as shining lights of civilisation. Asians who can afford it will hop on a plane to Singapore when they need hospital treatment because they know it will be better than that offered in their own country. People in other nations have a reasonably accurate view of the capabilities of their own institutions. If they are good, then fine. If not, then they will seek to use others if they can. They are merely institutions, some of which function well, others less so. They are not core parts of the national identity. De Gaulle’s “certaine idée de la France” was of a princess or Madonna with a “destinée eminente et exceptionelle”, Danny Boyle’s British equivalent was of nurses and NHS beds.
At some level, this might be harmless. A nation battered by a bruising 20th century and with an instinctual dislike for the airy-fairy, cast around for reasons to feel good about itself, alighted on some well-intentioned institutions which unite the nation and sought to rebuild its self-image on those terms. Used to being top dog, it is easy to assume that the nation’s public services were naturally “world-leading”. If you can run a quarter of the planet, then providing healthcare and entertainment should be a doddle. It’s also much nicer than forcibly subjugating a large portion of the world’s population, offering the warm glow of moral self-satisfaction as an added bonus.
However, the attempt to build the mythical out of the real brings problems if it means we treat the real as the mythical. For that which we venerate, we do not seriously question. But the only way to know is to question. King Alfred’s reputation comes not from his cooking skills, but from a sober analysis of his performance as king. By contrast, when it comes to our public services, we seem to follow Stephen Covey’s dictum that, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.”
Underfunding and political mismanagement might explain some of the NHS’ failings, but probably not all. We do not know because we do not ask, resulting in damage to countless lives. A BBC secure in the regard which metropolitan liberals feel for it (and its funding settlement) has no reason to care that its offering increasingly dissatisfies swathes of the country. We may reasonably doubt whether Dominic Cummings’ diagnosis that the Civil Service needs more physicists will make much difference, but it does, at least, spring from an understanding that its performance must and can be improved.
If it is important to confront the less noble aspects of our past, is it not equally necessary that we turn the same unsparing eye to the present? We will all benefit.
