It's Time to Revive Pax Britannica

What, if anything, has Britain left to give the world? Our ancestors have already bequeathed humanity so much, from the rule of law to the laws of motion, that it might seem presumptuous to claim that in our time we could still make a comparable contribution. Yet if we did not still believe that Britain's best days were still to come, who would bother to stay on our damp little Atlantic island? At a deeper level than that at which politics and economics are normally discussed, the British people has not lost its unspoken confidence in the strength of our traditions, our character and our common sense. The British are at their best, indeed, in a tight spot. However depressed the national mood may be, no true countryman of Shakespeare can fail to thrill to the sentiments of Henry V in his speech on St Crispin's Day ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers"), just as no countryman of Churchill can hear his Battle of Britain speeches ("Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few") without emotion. Note the emphasis on "the few": the fate of our nation has always depended on a handful of brave souls, in war and peacetime, to do what they knew to be right.