The Britain which was meant to be

The better timeline

Man, they say, is a fallen creature. And ours is a fallen world. Covid debts. Net Zero scams. Vaccine deaths. Counted by the million.

But it did not have to be this way. Our timeline has some lucky breaks, it is true. The birth of Vasily Arkhipov, to name one. But it is the misfortune, inflicted on a coin-flip, that is harder to detect.

In 1999, Peter Hitchens, then working for the Daily Express, contested the Conservative nomination for the seat of Kensington and Chelsea against Michael Portillo. In our timeline Portillo triumphed.

But in another timeline, it was Peter Hitchens who succeeded. Armed with his towering intellect he easily swept aside the modernisers within the Conservative Party hierarchy, becoming leader of the party within a year. He contests the 2001 election on a sternly patriotic platform, with no metrosexual guff about wimmin n minorities, winning a handsome majority against Tony Blair.

By 2005 every town in the country has a Grammar school, the cannabis users have been flogged and their dealers hung and Britain has avoided an expensive and unpopular entanglement in Iraq. Hitchens increases his majority by forty seats. Stern regulatory reforms and hostility to personal and national debt, complemented by a booming manufacturing sector insulate Britain from the worst of the financial crisis, winning him international praise from every titled economic institution across the globe.

By the time the 2010 election rolls around Labour barely bother to canvass. By 2015 the opposition benches are reduced to a few fruity socialists, the likes of Jeremy Corbyn, who suit Hitchens well as intellectual sparring partners but hold next to no real power outside of their allotments. In 2020, Britain and Sweden stand alone in Western Europe opposing the madness of lockdown. The British economy remains buoyant as it stands alone amongst large countries in remaining unmuzzled.

Even better, the country is now harvesting the rewards of reintroducing selective education. A new cadre of ultra-talented young men born around the turn of the century are moving rapidly into positions of power, enthusiastically driving progress forward. Often their schemes – including the conversion of all social housing into Crispr Cas-9 enhanced polygyny towers – earn them a stern rebuke from Master Hitchens. But delivered always with an obliging grin.

Now the year is 2026. Britain, so sleek yet so powerful, forges ahead into the second quarter of the 21^stcentury with an experienced captain at the tiller.

It is then, that - as in our time – the President of the United States elects to bomb Iran, leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Is it then that Lord Hitchens lifts hid head to the sky, his olympian nostrils open wide as he smells an opportunity.

“It is time to right some wrongs. Is it not?” Peter intones, as the Wireless radio in No.10 relays the news that Khamenei is under attack.

Haagling Vertrix, a 230 IQ 16 year old who was appointed as No.10 Chief of Staff immediately thanks to his performance in the 11+, understands what his Prime Minister is referring to. Nonetheless he allows Hitchens the opportunity to impart another lesson in history.

“What ever do you mean, Master Hitchens?”

“Ah. Well, you are still a child, like virtually everybody else in Britain these days. Including the police officers and the judges. So I shall forgive your ignorance. Haagling, the year was 1952. Britain then was known as ‘Great Britain’. Yes, we had suffered two grievous blows during the wars. More died in the first world war, there were…hmmm…

“887,858 deaths” Vertrix interjects. “That is if you include colonial troops in the total”.

“Hmmm. Yes. Well, we had bled the best of our old patriotic middle class - accountants and dentists, into the fields of the Somme. Then again, some twenty years later into the sands on the Normandy Coast. To top that all off we were dead broke. We had mortgaged the Empire to the United States who left us cut adrift in a world they were busy carving up with the Soviet Union.”

Vertrix nodded.

“But we still had some semblance of dignity. A powerful navy, an industrial base. The debts were mounting up and the heating was off. But the bailiffs had not come to take the television. So we could still kid ourselves, with our chilblains and our rationing cards, that we were still a global power.”

Vertrix smiles, beckoning Peter on.

“But then deep in what had once been our old Imperial heartland, in Egypt, a local rebellion blockading Suez. And our colonels, imagining they were still Gordon or Kitchener, reached for the riding crop to give Nasser a thorough good whipping along with the French and the Israelis.”

“And what NOBODY” Peter abruptly shrieks “NOBODY even KNOWS anymore, is that America actually THREATENED at one point to fire at OUR SHIPS with the active help of the Soviet Union. We played a game of chicken with both the Soviets and the Americans facing against us together. And boy did we blink.”

“Wow. I never knew that!” Vertrix lies.

“Hmm. Yes. Well. That was pretty much the end of the British empire. Within ten years, a majestic country whose great grey warships once boldly spread trade and enlightenment across each of the seven seas would become the ‘Ukay’ – a hollow husk of a people hooked on divorce, the pill and abortion.”

“All three of which you abolished immediately, leading to the Hitchens baby boom.”

Hitchens smiles. “Yes. Well. There is no longer a Soviet Union for us to get our revenge upon, despite fashionable insistence that modern Russia, with a GDP the size of Italy’s, is still a superpower. But there is still a United States.”

“They will say that Khamenei is a terrorist when you come to his aid.” Vertrix offers.

“That may be so. But governments are elected to pursue the national interest, not embark on moral crusades. And besides, Nasser was also a rather nasty fellow, despite finding himself on the right side of that fashionable cause of decolonisation…”

Within hours the cities which dot the Continental United States have been turned to rubble by Concorde Harrier Jump Jets. Witnessing the extraordinary progress that Britain has made with military technology, diplomatic communiques begin landing in King Charles Street.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand offer to rejoin Britain as constituent countries. Vast swathes of Africa make similar offers. Netanyahu offers Britain a quarter within Jerusalem. China offers humble submission alongside an offer of peace concubines, the latter of which Hitchens sternly rejects.

Tehran, 2026.