Exactly what is so great about Britain?

Published on Monday 5 March 2007 01:30

SO MANY words have been written around the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union; so few have focused on the principal consequence of this momentous event: the creation of the British state. It is salutary to examine the performance of this new state, particularly in the early years. For the most part, that performance was inglorious and dire.

The defining political force of the fledgling British state was Sir Robert Walpole, who is generally regarded as Britain's first prime minister. Certainly, his influence was such that, in effect, he created the office - even if it was not then as we understand it.

Walpole practised venality on a colossal scale. His long stint as leader (1721-1742, and an earlier spell, 1715-1717) was characterised by pervasive corruption. There is little to be said in his defence, other than that he pursued a reasonably pacific foreign policy. In that respect, he might be favourably compared with the current, 51st, leader of the British state.

Walpole's immediate successors as prime minister - or leaders - were little better. Spencer Compton was a nonentity; Henry Pelham was weak, though more honest than Walpole.

From a Scottish perspective, he is most notable for breaking up Highland society after the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1745-46.

Butcher Cumberland, in his victory at Culloden, undoubtedly had the support of most Scots; but the repression of the Highlands was, at times, barbaric.

Next in this catalogue of mediocrity comes the Duke of Newcastle, a competent political fixer but utterly devoid of ideals or leadership qualities. Then, the Duke of Devonshire, a decent man whose premiership lasted only a few months and next, the first Scot to be leader, the Earl of Bute.

Here at last was an enlightened figure, though he did not particularly want to govern. He was reviled and abused, not least because he was Scottish. He was cruelly maligned by the nascent English press, threatened with assassination and burned in effigy.

If we fast-forward a little we come to Lord North, whose principal non-achievement (among many) was the loss of the American colonies. The British state wanted to retain these colonies and their loss was a debacle marked by political bungling and military incompetence.

Meanwhile, the first stirrings of industrialisation were taking place, but the British state failed to respond in any humane and judicious manner to this economic and social upheaval, which involved massive human displacement and the creation of the first large-scale, modern proletariat.

At this time, Britain did produce several notable thinkers and reformers, but they were rarely appreciated by the state. For example, Tom Paine, who played a key role in the American and French revolutions, and to this day remains a hero in the United States and France, was tried in Britain (in his absence) for sedition. The prosecutor, the future British prime minister Spencer Perceval, described the distinguished writer as "wicked and malicious".

Paine was brilliantly defended by Thomas Erskine. However, the foreman of the jury (picked by the government) glibly announced Paine guilty before the judge started summing up. Paine was sentenced to death.

Some historians would claim the Enlightenment was a manifestation of the British state's growing sophistication. But in France and Germany, the Enlightenment is regarded as, well, essentially a French and German movement, with the British contribution an add-on. As for the industrial revolution, which was very much a British revolution, it was not until the Victorian era that a state response to the terrible social evils consequent to rapid industrialisation began on a serious basis.

To be fair to the British state, it did at long last come good, spectacularly so. Its "finest hour" came in the period 1940-1945. And even although it was left virtually bankrupt and exhausted after a wholly just war effort, the state bravely, if not wisely, embarked on a hugely ambitious welfare project.

The visionary who more than anyone shaped the British welfare state was Sir William Beveridge. He was determined to eliminate what he identified as the "giant evils" of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

Well, it is sadly evident that this vastly expensive extended experiment in welfarism has failed, if the elimination of those five "evils" is to be the test. Only Disease has been, to any realistic extent, comprehensively beaten.

Yet that remarkable decade of 1940-1950 was the high point of the British state; since then, the decline has been unremitting. But it is not the current abject performance of Britain that apologists for the Union must defend. Rather, the question they have to answer is: what exactly was progressive or ameliorative about the British state created in 1707?

From a Scottish point of view, its early performance was hopeless. The Church of Scotland suffered early on when, in anti-Presbyterian legislation, the Patronage Act restored the right of landowners to appoint ministers. The malt tax was introduced, in contravention of the Union settlement and so on. Many Scots are always going to be dissatisfied with the Union. But do the British people as a whole consider the state as impressive and commendable as its champions would have us believe?