In the opening of E. H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, there’s a lovely metaphor of the work of an historian. History, he writes, is like a bottomless well stretching into eternity, visible only by human recollection falling through the generations like lighted piece paper dropped into the void, getting smaller and smaller as it falls and disappears.
I’m reminded of that image as I consider the sense of deja vu currently hanging over British life; it feels as though we have been here before, and on more than one occasion. To live in Britain today is to be gripped by a sense of overwhelming, unshiftable malaise, which in recent months has morphed into something darker and more violent: a mood of bubbling resentment and anger that feels ready to explode. In many respects, this atmosphere is entirely new: a reflection of the globalised, social-media age in which we now live. And yet, it also feels so jarringly, achingly familiar — a dim folk memory from our recent past. Poor, rainy Britain, once again unsure what to do with itself, buffeted by the ideological storms rolling in from the United States, humiliated by those to whom we cling closest.
