Lord Frost has warned he “fears for the future of Britain” with political establishments “just about managing” attitude to running the country.
The former special advisor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and chief negotiator with the EU over Brexit launched a pessismistic assessment.
Writing in the Telegraph he cited the example of the long-closed Hammersmith Bridge in London as a metaphor for Britain today.
The Victorian structure spanning the River Thames has been shut for four years without any solution from the Labour local authority or from Conservative central government.
Bemoaning the farcical delay in fixing the bridge, he wrote: “I dwell on it because it seems deeply symbolic. As the Roman Empire in the West ended, so people stopped looking after its infrastructure. Aqueducts were repurposed and bridges failed.
“That’s why I see their modern parallels as the canary in the coalmine for a civilisation that is finding it harder to do the basics.”
The 58-year-old went on to cite more examples of decay in the UK, including crumbling concrete in schools, long-running rail strikes and massive backlogs in the NHS.
Lord Frost added there was a belief in the “political class” that nothing else is possible except “comfortable decline” after the country settled into a “torpor” during the pandemic.
“I really fear for the future of Britain if we don’t get off this path”, he observed.
He continued that for him the “ruling class” in Britain were more concerned with protecting their own “privileges” than advancing anyone else’s needs.
To illustrate this point Lord Frost pointed out how the NatWest board had tried to protect Alision Rose over the Nigel Farage de-banking scandal, and how the British Museum under George Osborne didn’t in his view seem to take seriously a recent spate of thefts.
Chillingly Baron Frost said the failure of NHS managers in Chester to heed warnings about Lucy Letby’s murderous spree on the neonatal wards was another example.
The peer ended his piece saying he understood why so many “think the system is rigged” and that the next generation may think “it’s better to try socialism”.
