The key goal of the government is to placate the right by sustaining foreign quarrels
In his dying words, Shakespeare’s Henry IV tells his son, the future Henry V, that he must divert the attention of the barons before they threaten his rule. “Therefore, my Harry, be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.”
Like Plantagenet warlords, Conservative leaders need foreign quarrels lest the voters realise they have presided over the stagnation of British life. Real wages in 2024 will be just 2.4% higher than 2008, compared with a 36% rise in the 16 years before the financial crisis. We are a sluggish, depressed and declining country, where hard work brings few rewards and most people cannot get on, however strenuously they try. If the UK were a person, it would be a punch-drunk boxer, staggering round the ring.
