Thanks to the state-funded and encouraged destruction of the family, at least a fifth of children in Britain eat a meal with another member of their household less often than once a week.
This elementary but important form of socialisation is therefore lost to them; and it is hardly surprising that many grow up into profoundly unsocial beings of whom others are afraid. A population has emerged that is the most charmless in the world.
Britain is economically on a knife edge. Its per-capita private debt is among the highest, if not the highest, in the world. It has a huge commercial deficit. Its budget deficit is among the highest in the world. Its government faces an insoluble dilemma: public spending is so large a part of the economy that if it is cut back, demand in the whole economy contracts severely; but if it is not, there is a debt crisis.
Any cuts, of course, will be certain to fall on those most in need: the state, after all, has its nomenklatura to protect. For the moment, only the crisis in Europe keeps Britain out of the headlights of the financial markets.
At the start of the Queen's reign, Britain led in more than one field. It invented the nuclear energy industry, for example; but now, if it wants to build nuclear power stations, it has to apply for assistance from foreign countries. This is despite the fact it spends five times as much per capita on education as it did at the beginning of the reign. Spend more, achieve less: that has been the motto that has guided successive British governments.
The country has become deeply corrupt, but in a typically British way -- that is to say, hypocritical and underhand, rather than worldly and cynical, Pecksniff rather than Talleyrand.
Corruption and irresponsibility, indeed, have been legalised: pound stg. 12 billion, for example, has disappeared without trace (except for some very rich consultants) on a supposedly beneficial scheme to provide centralised and uniform medical records for the entire population. No crime has been committed, but the money has gone. This is typical.
During the reign of Elizabeth II the standard of living of the population has undoubtedly risen enormously -- not even British political incompetence could prevent the effects of technical progress. But the odour of unstoppable decay at a deeper level is everywhere evident.
None of this is the Queen's fault: her self-mastery and devotion to duty have been exemplary. She deserved a better country; but orgies of celebration are certainly not in order.
