Peter Hitchens’s ‘The Abolition of Britain’: a review

“Britain is my country, may my fate not be as dire as hers.”

Michael Haggar is the grandfather of Bournbrook’s Editor, Michael Curzon, and has also reviewed ‘The Abolition of Liberty’, by Peter Hitchens. This review has previously been featured in a Bournbrook print issue.

I was born in 1944, married in 1964 with our first child born in 1965, the year of Winston Churchill’s funeral. This is broadly the period covered by this admirable book, factual, moving, perceptive and always understated.

Failing a grammar school interview, I attended an excellent technical comprehensive where discipline and standards were extremely high. Working in the bookshop supplying Rugby School I met and married my wife of now fifty-four years. Our children attended a comprehensive that had formerly been the grammar school and still retained very high standards. They were lucky. The education of their children, our grandchildren, has been atrocious, only mitigated by the efforts of parents and grandparents.

My grandson, in his second year studying politics and knowing my interest in the subject, urged me to read this book. Once started it was compulsive reading. The author’s wry humour ensures that interest is maintained despite the tragic nature of much of the narrative. I recalled the events that have so changed our nation remarkably easily. New to me were the detailed explanations for the misguided and sometimes dishonest actions taken by our leaders, all set out in a logical and approachable manner. Actions I had sensed were wrong and shameful as they occured but which I am now more able to understand and put into context. I must thank my grandson for encouraging me towards the first book I have read in my native tongue for several years.

Through this book the author sets out in detail the political decisions taken which were often deliberately intended to weaken our nation. These impacted on, amongst others, education, marriage, religion, the monarchy, broadcasting, television, language and even our interactions with one another. ‘Experts’ and dubious pressure groups have conspired with the connivance of government to destroy centuries of tradition and decry commonsense.

The shame I feel at the current actions of our pusillanimous leaders reminds me of the leaders of France in the 1930s and the deep hurt and disillusionment felt by novelist Irene Nemirovsky at betrayal by her beloved adopted country. Britain is my country, may my fate not be as dire as hers.

I commend this book to all who seek to understand. For future generations, may I respectfully draw their attention to the final sentence of the afterword and add my heartfelt plea to that of the author where he hopes that his voice may explain how we, as a once great nation, have wasted our birthright and thrown away our gifts in so short a time.