Britain: The Country That Left the Future and Took the Wrong Turn at 1952

South Korea is powering ahead with semiconductors, green tech, and a ruthless focus on education. China’s reshaping the world order with data, steel and geopolitical muscle. And Britain? We’re still debating whether kids should learn critical thinking or just memorise 1066 and draw a nice picture of a motte-and-bailey castle.

Once, we were a services superpower – brains over brawn, ideas over industry. But then came Brexit, and with it, a sharp right turn into delusion. We tore up trade deals, turned away global talent, and wrapped ourselves in bunting while the economy quietly shrank.

Now, just as we need a generation of young people trained to think critically, analyse media, spot logical fallacies, and challenge lazy narratives, we’ve got Nigel Farage eyeing up the curriculum with all the subtlety of a man clutching a pitchfork. He wants to muzzle lawyers, meddle in education, and stamp out anything that might encourage a young person to ask, “Hang on, where’s the evidence for that?”

Because that’s the point – critical thinking is dangerous to populists. Teach a child to think, and they’ll soon wonder why we’re still blaming immigrants for government failure, or how Brexit made us poorer and more isolated, or why the NHS has fewer doctors than slogans. Farage doesn’t want a thinking electorate – he wants a saluting one.

Meanwhile, councils are broke, trains are broken, and Britain is running on vibes and Victorian sewage pipes. South Korea invests in the future. China plans decades ahead. We? We clutch pearls over statues and pretend that knowing the date of the Battle of Hastings is more useful than being able to deconstruct a Daily Mail headline.

Of course, teach 1066 – but teach it alongside the tools to interrogate it. Without critical thinking, history is just propaganda in a funny hat.

We could lead again – in renewables, biotech, culture, ethics. But only if we stop treating knowledge like a threat and education like an ideological battlefield.

Because in a country where ignorance is cultivated and curiosity is condemned, there’s only one winner – and it’s not the people.