ARE WE REALLY THAT BAD?

I heard the story of David Cameron talking to Vladimir Putin at one of those G7 parties when parties were normal things, pre-pandemic. Allegedly Putin sidled up to Cameron and smilingly said:

“David, I know that you think I consider you’re degenerate, decadent, and weak and that I loathe democracy. You know something. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong in thinking that.”

I’m not sure I believe that story because the idea of Putin smiling isn’t credible.

But it got me thinking.

Are we decadent, degenerate, and weak? And is democracy all it’s cracked up to be? The past two years have changed a lot of things not least the spontaneity that made a last-minute invitation to go out and be a bit naughty, irresistible (“go on… it’s Friday…we’ll go to Burnt Orange and take it from there… ooh la la…this is Brighton after all.”)  It was what all those Russian oligarchs thought and until a few weeks ago we trailed weakly in their wake wishing our rowing boat could be a Super Yacht.

Our decadence was pretty limited. We ate out more often. We went on interesting holidays to the Maldives or Caribbean. We bought nice handbags. (No, not me.) We bought stuff that sometimes we didn’t need. We supported start-up businesses. We were the pioneers of online shopping and weekends in Airbnb country cottages. Not decadent, no. Just having a good time. A better time than we’d had before. Self-indulgent? Maybe. But hardly decadent.

Degenerate? Now that’s a more serious accusation. It’s about showing signs of decline. If you get old, you degenerate a bit, but you don’t become a degenerate. Is Britain degenerating? Well, yes. Exiting from the company of the EU was a conscious decision of the electorate to be smaller and rather less important. A bit like resigning from the Board of a big company to start your own small exciting business. Good to do but your voice is a smaller one than it was.  Anyway, it's time for all the western world to acknowledge we are in decline. Europe and the USA are not quite what they were, but we are still mighty just not “mightier yet.”

Weak? Yes maybe. Certainly, a bit lazy and happy to settle for a quiet life.  Unobservant. Crossing our fingers. Who needs a defense budget? Armed conflict is so yesterday. Who could imagine a war we thought? Putin was tough and strong we said but he’s not aggressive and he’s fair minded.  We need to be with him we protested, let’s not be antagonistic or awkward or old-fashioned. We need his oil and gas. Let’s be friends – we said. Let’s be friends.

We weren’t weak so much as  too trusting. After Salisbury, Aleppo, Crimea and a litany of violence perhaps naïve is a better word.

The wake-up has been abrupt. Nearly all commentators seem to feel this has been much needed. Our upper lips have been well and truly stiffened.

Since 1980 our world’s improved. We have more choice and in every way life is better. We’re, nearly all of us, wealthier, healthier and happier. Democracy had won or so we thought. Russia’s people were poorer apart from a few oligarchs and Putin whom some believe is the world’s richest man. The Ukraine War is ideological. Is Ukraine part of our world, as they’d come to believe, or another darker, poorer world? Starkly … do we want South or North Korea?

Putin may loathe democracy but it works better than communism or autocracy.

You get to vote and that’s how Zelensky is President of Ukraine.