Yasmin Alibhai Brown writes:
Full pomp and little glory. That’s how millions of Britons felt about President Xi’s splendiferous state visit.
In one
official picture taken at the palace banquet the Duchess of Cambridge, bedecked
in diamonds, looks as if she is a captive on display; the Queen scowls, a
lackey appears stiff and nervous and Xi smiles tightly and only with his lips.
Our political leaders exhort us to be unthinkingly patriotic and proudly
British.
Yes, we can do pageantry and
ceremony better than most other nations: Royals, golden coaches and mounted
parades. Is that it? Is it enough?
Not for three make-up artists at a television station I
visited this week. I have met them before and they seemed apolitical, loyal
royalists, happy enough with the way things are. This week something changed.
It was a rude awakening.
One of the women simply said: ‘I feel quite ashamed
actually, now, of being British.”
Others felt that Britain had bent, sunk too low, given too much away to
a “foreign country”. Beneath the anti-foreign sentiments, I sense a river of
anxiety that “Great Britain” is now just a name hanging on ragged myths and
political fabrications.
The powerful can’t hide truths from the people as they
once could. Millions may be disconnected from big issues, policies and matters
of the state but they feel all is not well in this once-blessed land.
The nation of shopkeepers is selling off too many of its
shops. The US tops the league of foreign owners of companies based in the UK.
Some EU countries have a strong business presence and now oil-rich Arab
nations, China and India are coming in fast.
Furthermore, British industry is
losing out to foreign competition. Our steel industry is the latest casualty;
thousands of jobs are being shed, causing untold distress.
Globalisation
respects no borders or human need – it is a monstrously powerful force that
brings both benefits and destruction to communities, countries and continents.
The latest batch of commercial agreements with China are part of that worldwide
economic model, the only one there is.
Unless the rich and poor nations get
together to rethink the system, they all have to play along and get the best
deals.
That doesn’t mean Britain has to bury its honour and
principles nor betray its good name and history. Under this Government, British
values seemingly boil down to economic whoredom, monetary privilege and the
bottom line.
We could have done business with China without putting on the
embarrassing show we have just witnessed. Cameron’s erstwhile trusted advisor Steve
Hilton was appalled by the kowtowing.
More disturbing to me was how
Xi’s visit was used to showcase the Tories’ own contempt for human rights and
international law.
Our police arrested Shao Jiang, a Chinese refugee and
survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was quietly protesting outside
Mansion House, while inside the establishment was sucking up in style to
President Xi. Police raided his home and took away his computer.
In the past fortnight, new laws
have withdrawn fundamental liberties from Muslims, young and old. We are no
longer to think or speak freely.
The right to demonstrate, along with
safeguards to protect freedom of speech and citizenship activism, are all
passing into the dark night.
To the governing clique,
fundamental rights are passé and prissy.
The ministerial code on standards and
practices has just been rewritten. Ministers need not bother themselves about
international law or human rights when making decisions or nurturing diplomatic
relationships.
And so they are intensely relaxed when the College of Policing
gets a lucrative contract to train the Saudi Arabian police (on how to lash,
behead and hang more efficiently?).
Maybe some Britons take pride in this
repressive new Britain; most do not.
Britain’s greatness was affirmed
not only by wars but peace-time nation building programmes, among them the
creation of the welfare state and the NHS.
Within five years, little will be
left of the founding ideals, policies or structures based on the pillars of
equality and access. The poor are once again a blot on the landscape to be
despised and punished.
Osborne and Cameron push through tax-credit cuts because
the victims don’t matter. They are barely human. Migrants and refugees, too,
are dehumanised and bestialised.
The Government is failing the young, declares
David Willetts, a serious Tory thinker:
“We are reshaping the state and storing
problems for the future by creating a country for older generations. The social
contract is a contract between generations and in Britain it is being broken.”
If this carries on, there really will be no such thing as society. Does this
official debasement of people and institutions make you proud to be British?
I am not trying to do my nation
down. As the years go by, my love of Great Britain strengthens. London is the
most vibrant city in the world, our natural and cultural habitats are
flourishing in spite of cuts.
Historian Dominic Sandbrook has just published
The Great British Dream Factory, a quirky book that celebrates the ballsy
nation which gives the world innovative television, gifted writers, musicians,
pop singers and irrepressible doers.
Last week I spoke at an event to celebrate
Octavia Hill, the Victorian philanthropist who created good dwellings for the poor
and got them to strive for “noble lives”.
We still have many such
irrepressible, optimistic Britons. But the nation has lost its soul
and principles. Adele and events to mark Agincourt may divert us but the sense
of loss and shame will soon return.
GB was once better than this. It may never
be again.
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