Our staunch ally, Great Britain, first known as “the sceptered isle” in Shakespeare’s Richard II, now travails against many tempests — domestic political instability, regret over Brexit, a degraded military, culture wars, denigration of the former Empire, and some diminution of enthusiasm for the monarchy. And not even Ian Fleming’s creation, MI6 operative James Bond, is safe.
The nation has had three Tory prime ministers since 2022: Boris Johnson; Liz Truss, who resigned after 45 days in office and whose misguided fiscal policies resulted in an intervention by the Bank of England to stabilize the government bond market; and now Rishi Sunak, for whom a majority of Britons have an unfavorable opinion, according to the Paris-based global market research firm Ipsos.
Almost four years after Great Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, a majority of the public believes that Brexit was a mistake, based on a poll conducted by Opinium, a market-research company based in London and New York. Inflation, food supply-chain disruption due to bureaucracy, immigration constraints, and damage to the British automobile industry are factors cited as fallout from Brexit. (RELATED from Frank Schell: An Exit Too Far AND ‘Minister Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do’)
The already small British Army at 76,000 continues to downsize. Early last year, a U.S. defense source privately expressed concern to then-British Minister of Defense Ben Wallace about Britain’s limited ammunition stores and supply-chain constraints, air defense capability, readiness capability, and obsolescence of armored vehicles. Remarkably, this assessment is in the public domain.
In Britain, the culture wars rage. Joining the ranks of Starbucks, Target, Disney, and Bud Lite, NatWest Group — a leading financial enterprise — cancelled the account of Nigel Farage, media personality and former leader of the right-wing Brexit Party, at Coutts, the NatWest private bank. Incompatibility with the firm’s values was cited. Some British consumer-products companies have already been sucked into the vortex of wokeness.
Empire bashing is very much in vogue in British media, academic, and political circles, and in some of its former possessions as well, even by those who were educated in the West and benefited therefrom. A sense of statehood, English common law and equality before it, the protection of private property, the English language as a global platform for trade and investment, construction of public works, cultural studies, and a rules-based order have been eclipsed by charges of exploitation and oppression, which, of course, have merit and cannot be denied.
Support for the monarchy by a majority continues, although the number of those considering it to be “very important” has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years, according to the not-for-profit National Centre for Social Research.
Against this landscape of self-doubt, even the iconic “Bond, James Bond” has come under fire. Several days ago, the thought police at the British Film Institute advised that they have established trigger warnings of Bond movies in conjunction with a tribute to the composer, the late John Barry, which includes commemorative screenings of You Only Live Twice and Goldfinger. In particular, such trigger warnings are directed at teenagers whose mental health might be imperiled — in stark contrast to the 250,000 boys under 18 who served in the British Army during World War I. (READ MORE: The Boys in the Shaky Boat)
It is well known that James Bond is a man of many passions and accouterments: vodka martinis, foie gras, and caviar; several packs per day of Morland cigarettes of a Balkan and Turkish mixture; a Bentley with an Amherst Villiers supercharger; a sleek Walter PPK chambered in 7.65 millimeters; a Berns Martin triple-draw holster; and a penchant for exotic women. Plus, Bond kills bad actors in the line of duty, with his double O license to do so.
Today’s Bond would not meet the standards of human resources departments of major corporations and government agencies. Management would deem that there is no amount of sensitivity training that could moderate the behavior of a violent and inflictive dinosaur. Indeed, an employer would feel no responsibility to help remediate Bond, and he would be shown the door without severance pay.
The forces of wokeness in Britain are overdoing it and have no sense of humor: The persona of Bond has entertained half the world’s people, according to a 2012 estimate by a Bond aficionado, writer, and blogger. Ian Fleming himself was known to be a tongue-in-cheek man, and this wry humor is especially evident in the Bond films starring Sean Connery and Roger Moore. Anticipating that the forces of political correctness could create a mutant Bond, this writer suggested in The American Spectator that one of Bond’s future duty weapons would be his apologies for the Anglo-American alliance.
The only good news in all this, if any, is that there is a major English-speaking G7 nation that is as confused about itself as the United States.
Frank Schell is a business strategy consultant and former senior vice president of the First National Bank of Chicago. He was a lecturer at the Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and is a contributor of opinion pieces to various journals.