Once Upon A Time

Russell Yorkshire

January 1, 2026.

Once upon a time, Britannia ruled the waves.

Not politely. Not with a focus group.

We ruled them with wooden ships, bad dentistry, and a stubborn belief that tea could solve most international disputes.

Were we perfect?

Goodness, no. But we tried. We explored, we built, we argued, we occasionally put the wrong flag in the wrong country and then stayed for 200 years out of embarrassment. It was chaotic, bold, occasionally disastrous — but it had backbone.

Fast-forward to modern Britain.

We no longer rule the waves.

We can barely rule a WhatsApp group.

Our ships are gone, our steelworks are museums, and our national identity is now decided by celebrities who think history began in 2016 and anything before that needs cancelling, apologising for, or remade with a ukulele.

Once, boys wanted to be sailors, soldiers, engineers.

Now they want man buns, podcasts, and to explain to you — loudly — why actually Churchill was problematic while they’ve never fixed so much as a leaking tap.

Our heroes used to be explorers.

Now they’re influencers.

We conquered continents; now we struggle with bin collections and are emotionally devastated by plastic straws.

Britannia once stood on the prow of the world, trident raised, daring the oceans to have a go.

Now she’d be forced to step down for using the word “prow” without checking if boats still identify as boats.

And God forbid you mention pride.

Not the Instagram kind — the old-fashioned sort.

The kind where you stand up straight, do your job properly, and don’t need a panel show to tell you how to feel about it.

We’ve gone from “Rule, Britannia!”

to “Sorry, Britannia, have you considered everyone else’s feelings?”

From empire to emoji.

From shipyards to hashtags.

From stiff upper lip to emotional support water bottles.

And yet — here’s the punchline.

That Britain didn’t quietly go underground.

It aged out.

Gen X was the last generation to remember a country before it started apologising for existing. They were raised by people who lived through war, rationing, rebuilding — and they understood, even if imperfectly, that history isn’t something you delete because it makes you uncomfortable.

But even Gen X wasn’t spared.

Some of them climbed straight into celebrity status and promptly set fire to the ladder behind them, lecturing the rest of us about virtue while living in gated irony with a Netflix deal.

Anyone after that?

Raised on screens, slogans, and selective outrage.

Taught nothing of Britain’s story except the worst footnotes — stripped of context, pride, or balance — until all that’s left is a vague shame they can’t explain and a culture they don’t feel part of.

It’s not rebellion.

It’s ignorance with confidence.

A hive mind fed by social media, celebrity talking points, and the belief that repeating the “right” opinion is the same as thinking. No curiosity, no grounding, no sense of continuity — just vibes, hashtags, and a permanent state of offence.

They don’t hate Britain.

They just don’t know it.

And you can’t love, protect, or improve something you’ve never been taught to understand.

So no — the old Britain isn’t quietly ticking along beneath the surface.

It’s being actively overwritten, rebranded, and memory-holed by people who think history began with them and ends with their feelings.

We didn’t lose an empire overnight.

We lost the story of who we were —

and replaced it with a loud, empty performance of who we’re told to be.

And that, my friends….

isn’t decline by accident.

It’s decline by design.

© Russell Yorkshire, 2026

Image via XAI

The most telling paragraph of this is the second last -

'We didn’t lose an empire overnight. We lost the story of who we were —

and replaced it with a loud, empty performance of who we’re told to be.'

This really hits home; what we, as a nation, used to be. Yes, flawed and far from perfect but the United Kingdom achieved things. Now, as Russell writes so pertinently, 'empty.'

And it is only the people of the UK who can put that right.

Kevan James

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