Punching above our weight

If you look a map of the world, and see see our tiny island floating in the north Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of western Europe, it is hard to understand why we enjoy such a high status in the world as a whole. We are one of the richest countries on the planet, and one of the most influential. We have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, we have a lot of clout in the middle east, our sovereign is head of state of a number of other powerful, independent countries and our multinational companies have a truly global reach.

In particular, we are a member of that small, select group of countries with nuclear weapons, a group which by the way, does not wish to see any other countries achieve the same status. But I find myself asking, what's it all about? The answer is, of course, history. We still dine out on the fabulous riches amassed (stolen is another word for it) when the British Empire was the biggest the world has ever seen, and the hangover from that is that we still like to think of ourselves as a major player on the world stage.

I visited Denmark and Sweden this summer, two advanced, highly civilised cultures which do not have nuclear weapons and have no prospect of a seat on the Security Council. They do have very sophisticated welfare schemes and embrace the idea of working together as communities and with other nations for their mutual benefit. But for some reason we still aspire to be more than that, hence our desire to retain WMDs in huge quantities, not to act as a deterrent against a threat that no longer exists (if it ever did), but to assert our status as a "world power", whatever that is. Yet Denmark and Sweden seem to manage perfectly well without this exalted status, as do countless other countries around the globe. Meanwhile our funds bleed away financing the Trident submarine, which the PM only today has stated will continue into the foreseeable future. Why for God's sake, when there are so many other more useful things we could be spending our money on?