Back to the Seventies — But Worse: A reflection on Britain’s long road back to decline. By Dusty Wentworth

I sometimes think Britain’s come full circle — back to the seventies, only this time worse. I was young then, but the memories haven’t faded: petrol queues stretching down the road, power cuts that plunged whole streets into darkness, and my dad getting stopped at Heathrow with a suitcase full of sugar. We’d brought it home from Saudi Arabia, where he was working, because Britain had run short. My gran, who’d lived through the war, treated that sugar like treasure. Rationing made sense to her — she’d seen worse. To the rest of us, it felt like a country running out of everything, including hope.

We had strikes, high inflation, and the three-day week. Yet there was still some fundamental faith in the future. People complained, but they worked, they coped. Communities held together. You could still believe Britain would somehow pull through.

The Lion Wakes: Pride and Division

Then came 1982. Argentina invaded the Falklands, thinking we wouldn’t respond. They misjudged us badly. As so often in our history, it took an external attack to wake the lion. Against the odds, our forces went halfway round the world and did what had to be done. The victory didn’t just save the islands; it reignited something in the nation — pride, belief, the sense that we still had steel in us.

But that pride was soon turned inward. The eighties became the decade of division. Whole industries that had held families together — coal, steel, shipbuilding — were dismantled in the name of reform. Pit villages went silent; the miners’ strike tore through communities. Thatcher’s Britain was confident but cold. The City of London boomed while the rest of the country bled. For every financial tower raised in London, there was a town somewhere up north that never recovered.

Fighting Ourselves and the World’s Fault Lines

By the early nineties the country was worn out. Poll tax riots, IRA bombings, recession — we were back to fighting ourselves. Then came a moment of rare unity: the first Gulf War. A short, sharp coalition campaign that worked. For a few months it looked as if the world might finally pull together. But that glow faded fast. Greed and politics took over, and Europe soon found its own nightmare in Bosnia.

The breakup of Yugoslavia showed what “never again” really meant — nothing. Bosnia fell into genocide, the UN stood helpless, and NATO finally acted. It ended the fighting, yes, but it also redrew the moral map of Europe — the West acting as judge and enforcer, Russia nursing the humiliation. From that moment, the fault line between Moscow and the West began to reopen, leading straight, in time, to Ukraine. The Balkans left another legacy too: millions displaced, criminal networks born in the chaos, and trafficking routes that still exist today.

Back home, John Major tried to steady things, but the national mood was tired. Sleaze and scandals finished off what little faith remained. When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, young and confident, people wanted to believe again. For a while, it felt like renewal. Britain was “Cool Britannia,” modern, optimistic. But beneath the surface, it was all veneer.

Then Diana died, and the mask slipped. I’ll never forget it — flowers piled high outside the palaces, strangers crying in the streets. It wasn’t just the loss of a princess; it was the end of a certain innocence. The public wanted empathy; the establishment gave silence. The monarchy survived, but it had to change fundamentally to do so.

Underneath Blair’s smile lay a darker truth. Globalisation was treated like a religion — borders open, markets free — and immigration soared. Britain had always gained from immigration, but this time the pace was too much. Housing, hospitals, schools — all came under severe strain. The numbers were often buried, the debate shut down. It was easier for the government to pretend everything was fine.

The Price of Expediency

Then came 9/11. The towers fell, the world changed, and suddenly the talk was of good and evil. The invasion of Afghanistan followed. The Taliban hadn’t masterminded the attacks, but they had sheltered al-Qaeda and refused to hand them over. Taking down that regime seemed justifiable at first; British troops fought hard and honourably. But the mission crept, stretched, and twisted into nation-building. We went in with purpose, and came out with nothing but graves and questions. Twenty years later, the West pulled out almost overnight, and the Taliban walked back in as if nothing had happened. For many of those who served, it felt like betrayal — years of sacrifice for nothing lasting.

And then came Iraq. The 1990 Gulf War had already shown Saddam’s weakness — his army shattered, his missiles unreliable. Yet in 2003 we were told he could strike in forty-five minutes. It was never true, and the people selling that story knew it. The war that followed tore Iraq apart, bred ISIS, and destroyed the last of Britain’s moral authority. When the lies finally came out, public trust in government went with them.

The financial crash of 2008 stripped away the final illusion of prosperity. The banks were rescued; ordinary people were not. Cameron’s austerity years that followed were dressed up as responsibility, but they were really neglect — public services gutted, local councils starved, wages frozen while costs climbed.

The Final Illusions Shattered

Then came Brexit. The question was simple: in or out. No half-measures, no second vote. The people chose to leave, and the political class simply refused to believe it.

What followed was years of obstruction, deceit, and distraction — an establishment doing everything it could to blunt the will of the electorate. By the time Johnson forced through his “deal,” it was Brexit in name only, a half-baked compromise designed only to save political face.

Then COVID hit, and the rot truly showed. Years of cuts left the NHS gasping, billions disappeared in contracts given to friends of ministers, and those in charge repeatedly broke their own rules. That hypocrisy did more damage to public trust than any single scandal in living memory.

Now here we are again: prices rising, strikes spreading, services collapsing. It feels exactly like the seventies — but without the solidarity that once got us through. We’re a country of decent, hardworking people led by opportunists who mistake spin for leadership.

Remembering Who We Are

But decline isn’t destiny. Britain has come back from worse. I’ve seen courage, humour, decency — the quiet strength of ordinary people who keep the country going when its leaders fail. Those qualities are still here. What’s missing is honesty. We don’t need another glossy slogan; we need truth, accountability, and a bit of humility from those who govern.

The Britain of my youth had less money but more character. Maybe that’s where we start again — not by chasing greatness, but by remembering who we are, and what we once stood for when we still believed in ourselves.

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