Seriously, Britain. Get over yourself.

I was reading this article on the Guardian Online a week or so back, which I find both highly interesting and highly significant. The columnist basically talks about how Britain is losing the influence it once had in international politics, as well as (or because of) losing economic competitiveness. She says that this is inevitable, and we need to "accept it gracefully". If I could have high-fived her, I would have done.
What? People don't high-five enough when talking about serious subjects!

Every Brit realistically knows that out economic and political strength is only going to get more and more dwarfed by that of China and India, and soon Brazil will overtake us too. America is declining as well, but they'll probably stay more relevant than us.
What the government needs to decide is whether it's going to react to this by trying to cling to international relevance, or whether it's going to ensure that quality of life for British people remains high and work on increasing it. Are we going to do brash, loud things to try and get China and America to listen to us, or are we going to withdraw politely to the background and use our resources to make Britain more sustainable, more equal, with a better welfare state and as excellent education as we can muster?

Frankly, the answer is obvious. As nice as it is to be able to have a disproportionally large voice in the international community, as we have done for much of the last two centuries, the primary responsibility or the government is to ensure that the British people are living good lives. And let's face it, sending troops to "sort out" Muslim nations and trying to pass rules on who does or doesn't get to hold nuclear weapons doesn't really affect the lives of the people the UK's government is supposed to be helping/protecting.

I know this all probably sounds a bit BNP, "Britain should look after itself and ignore everyone else", but that's not actually what I'm trying to say. It's still vitally important to maintain good trading and political relationships with neighbouring countries, we just don't need to try and tell them what to do.

Look and Sweden and Switzerland. Their voices are among the quietest when it comes to the international stage, but their people are among the happiest. They got their priorities right.

The irony is that if the British government does the things that are really necessary to improve life in Britain, like making energy 100% renewable, replacing crude oil products, reducing tension between the majority population and minority groups such as Muslims, then we will become pioneers for the rest of the world. We will have more influence than we have done since the British Empire- and it will be a genuine influence based on our merits, rather that a superficial voice back up by clever accountants and men with guns. The phrase "actions speak louder than words" happens to be an extremely true one.

So, yeah. That. In summary- embrace decline, because it will only be a bad thing if we try to avoid it.