Decline is back. Commentators are noticing that the UK economy has not been doing well and is projected to stagnate. Other countries are doing better, in productivity, investment, research and skills. It really is deja vu all over again. But not quite. Only yesterday we were being told a different story – one of the fastest rates of growth in the OECD, of a new global, buccaneering Britain, a science superpower, an innovation hub, the fastest vaccine rollout… What is going on?
We have been living in an era of revivalism. At its core is an economic story which holds that Thatcherism had reversed the longstanding British economic decline, which had perhaps started in the 1870s, or perhaps in 1945. From being the sick man of Europe, the UK could stand proud again, and return to a global role. This view profoundly affected politics. New Labour, the party of post-decline cool Britannia, started to talk of British leadership, of global Britain, of a special internationalist destiny.
