Ruth Dudley Edwards: Britain must stop the self-pity and realise how great it really is

Like Patrick Cosgrave, the man I married that day — the product of a north Dublin working-class estate who would become a speech writer for Margaret Thatcher — my reading had made me fall in love with England and the English.

And from 1980 onwards I came to know and love Northern Ireland and to describe myself as British-Irish.

But though I don't think there's a better country in the world than the UK, its negativity about itself can make me very cross.

I frequently find myself telling British people they don't know what they've won in the lottery of life by being here.

So I was delighted by a Spectator article last week with the headline ‘Britain doesn't need to become great again — it already is’.

It was a love letter from a distinguished outsider — Piotr Wilczek, who has just retired after three-and-a-half years as Poland's ambassador in London.

He left, he told us, with two strong impressions.

The first was that the UK “remains one of the most astonishing places in the world”: citing, for example, its domination of global finance, its four top ten universities, the stunningly successful creative industries, its military capability and so on.

“The second: the British are suddenly, and oddly, intent on convincing themselves it isn't.”

He pooh-poohed all the people telling him Brexit was a catastrophe: “it was the result of a clear and free choice made by a democratic people with a fully functioning parliament”.

Britain remains a heavyweight, he said, with unrivalled institutions, global networks and cultural soft power.

“The City of London, English law, the English language and the university system together form an ecosystem no other European country has been able to replicate.”

Its greatness is about more than economics: “It’s about a civilisation”.

The monarchy is a stabilising symbol of continuity, the common law system binds much of the English-speaking world in a shared legal culture of fairness and reason and, despite its flaws, the BBC is one of the most trusted media organisations on the planet.

The problem, he thought, is perhaps that Britons are so accomplished at self-criticism they often fail to appreciate their own system or their capacity for resilience.

Back in Warsaw, Piotr Wilczek “can say without irony that Britain remains one of the most civilised, innovative and determined nations in the world.

“It doesn't need to be ‘great again’ — it simply needs to recognise it already is.

“The patient isn’t dying; it just needs a strong cup of tea, a brisk walk in the rain, and a little less self-pity.”

Spot on.

Keir Starmer may not be the leader we need to recover our confidence, but Kemi Badenoch, a brilliant and perceptive outsider, is waiting in the wings.

Happy New Year everyone.

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Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions and also of Aftermath: the Omagh bombing and the families’ pursuit of justice