There is a certain type of person, typified by the average Europhile, who seems to take delight in denigrating this country, dismissing its achievements and sneering at the history in which so many of us take great pride. On more than one occasion I have seen such people describe the UK as a speck on the map just north of the European continent which is of no importance.
To this sort of comment I would reply in the same manner as did Churchill who, when in 1940 it was said that England would have her neck wrung like a chicken, replied 'Some Chicken! Some Neck!'. To those foolish enough to describe this great country in such terms I would say 'Some Speck!'.
Not only are we one of the longest existing nation-states in the world but the truth is that British influence has shaped that world as much as any other country in history. The enduring legacy of the classical civilisations of Greece and Rome can never be denied but so many of the scientific and industrial developments, without which our modern way of life would not exist ,owe their origin to the inhabitants of Britain, while concepts such as democracy and the rule of law would not be so widespread were it not for British influence during the centuries we dominated much of the planet.
Although our military power is now greatly diminished this country continues to be a powerhouse of invention. Indeed a recent article in The Guardian, hardly a cheerleader for Britain, stated that 'The Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Japanese governmental organisation, found that over forty per cent of major discoveries during the past fifty years have come from the UK.'
To list all the inventions made, the organisations created, and the social advances, first advocated by Britons would no doubt try the patience of any reader but in order to show how untrue is that the contention that we have not contributed more to the world than almost any other country it is worth mentioning at least the most significant.
Among these inventions and discoveries are anaesthetics, ball bearings, aircraft carriers, computers, concrete, DNA, elastic, dynamos, fax machines, fingerprinting, hovercraft, steam engines (trains and ships), railways, jet engines, lawnmowers, matches, MRI scanners, pencils, penicillin, television, photography, plastics, radar, seismographs, supersonic transport, shorthand, sign language, sonar, stamps, stereos,tanks, tyres, vaccination, VTOL, the world wide web. Of course the list does not include many inventions made by Britons who had emigrated such as the telephone or those which were invented here but developed by others. Incidentally I wonder how many people know that there is, at this moment, a British satellite, launched by a British rocket, still in orbit.
A list of all the great British scientists, inventors and engineers would stretch for pages but perhaps it is enough to remember Darwin and Newton, possibly the two most brilliant scientists the world has ever seen.
As far as culture is concerned we have had artists such as Turner, novelists like Jane Austin and Dickens, great actors and actresses and of course, the man of the millennium, William Shakespeare. The sports we have given to the world include Football, Cricket, Rugby, Golf, Tennis, Squash and Badminton while organisations range from the Royal Society, the Scouts and Guides and Nursing to the Mother of Parliaments. The ideals of trial by jury and habeas corpus were also conceived in this country.
When one realises that, in addition to all the above, the industrial revolution began in the British Isles, British explorers opened up the world, the British Empire was the greatest the world has ever seen and the English language is spoken by one in five people on the planet we can see that only fools can regard this country as being other than perhaps the greatest nation that has ever existed. We have had times in our history when it looked as if we were finished but we have always bounced back.
One statistic which gives the lie to the claim that Britain is, or ever has been, insignificant, is that, out of the approximately 200 countries existing in the world, we have invaded all but 22 and have won almost every war in which we have fought. When we did lose it was generally against those such as our American cousins who, after all, were at the time just the British overseas! Many may criticise this record but it certainly makes clear that Britain has always been a force to be reckoned with.
Now however we face a threat which could see our proud history end in a whimper and one that comes from within. Thanks to a corrupt, moronic and frankly, traitorous political class, our nation could cease to exist, reduced to parts of a fragmented set of European regions, and her people deprived of the right to rule themselves, instead being forced to bend the knee to arrogant bureaucrats in a foreign land. It is indeed ironic that the only way Britain could really become a 'speck', as claimed by the chattering classes, is thanks to their own actions in taking us into the EU. We must ensure that our proud history continues but the only way is to break free of Brussels and to replace the current British elite by those who believe in our nation and her people.