Brexit-backing newspaper The Telegraph has called on Britain to wake up from its “debilitating stupor” and recognise that its status as one of the “wealthiest, most civilised countries in the world is at risk for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.”
Allister Heath, who backed Liz Truss to deliver a Brexit that ‘actually works’, says the UK is going the way of Argentina – “once one of richest nations but now an impoverished, unstable basket-case” – but struggled to put his finger on why that might be.
Pointing out that, based on current trends, Britain will be overtaken in terms of GDP per capita by Poland in a dozen years, he said:
“The sorry truth is that Britain’s fall from grace has been more extreme, more sudden, less explicable and far less forgivable” than its European neighbours, adding that we should be doing “so much better, especially after Brexit”.
Heath said the NHS is in tatters and the current crisis could drive out people who are “skilled and educated” because there is no longer a decent level of healthcare.
He said that, while the NHS is the most obvious symptom of our national decline, “immigration, law and order and our energy policy are also deeply broken”.
“With virtually no growth, what is left of our military prowess and geopolitical influence”, he asked, saying Rishi Sunak’s New Year speech was akin to “taking a pea shooter to a nuclear battlefield”.
Meanwhile, we await the penny to drop…
Related: Tories on the hunt for comms professional who can ‘minimise negative publicity’
