From the time of Sir Winston Churchill in world war two and Harold Macmillan shortly afterwards, both of whom had American mothers, we have heard much about a special relationship with the United States. What is the nature of it?

Some elements of it are fairly obvious. The 13 east coast states were settlements of people from the United Kingdom and date in the case of Virginia to the time of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth 1st. There is therefore a shared early history, a shared legal system (until Britain compromised the Common Law in 1972) a shared language (sort of) and in recent times a shared camaraderie in two world wars.

Until the reign of King George 111 the east coast states, which were pretty much all there was of America, were British colonies growing cotton and tobacco with the use of slave labour in the south, and developing more industrial activity in the north.

In that reign, perhaps unreasonably, perhaps also because of mismanagement, the American colonies revolted against British rule over being required to make a tax contribution to the cost of services provided by the home government.

Those services were particularly the provision of defence against the French who were established in Canada and minded to expand down the Mississippi valley, thus cutting off the colonies from the hinterland which has become the United States as we know it today.

The important word in this dispute is ‘required’. The UK government was autocratic as it thought it had a right to be. The defensive military establishment in the American colonies was a drain on resources and it was not considered unreasonable that the colonies which benefited from that protection should make a contribution to its cost. The cry set up in the colonies. was ‘No taxation without representation’. A better justified cry might have been ‘No taxation without consultation’.

Completely mismanaged the situation went from bad to worse. An attempt was made to settle the matter by force. The Redcoats however were faced with a situation which has become the norm in modern times. They could not cope with guerrilla action, with sharpshooters who disappeared into the civilian population, with an enemy that could not be brought to battle and defeated. The French of course meddled in the situation. The colonies were lost. They declared their independence and the way was open for the creation of the United States.

At that time the American colonies were the bulk of what might have been thought of as a British Empire. However the British Empire was still to come. Children today probably do not know because they are not told by people whose ideology inclines them to believe that the Empire was an evil and a matter of shame, that when I was born a quarter of the world’s surface on the map was coloured red and governed from London. Communications within the Empire were assured and the various territories protected by the Royal Navy which ruled the seas.

All that remains of that Empire today is on display each year on November 11 at the Cenotaph when representatives of all those territories of the Empire (now the Commonwealth) lay their wreaths in memory of those who died in its battles.

In the early days of the 20th century British power was deliberately challenged by the building of a German Navy of considerable size. The long peace which followed the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, which was broken only by the German attack on France in 1870, was broken yet again by the German attack on Belgium and France in 1914.

Although Germany was defeated and its Navy destroyed in the 1914–1918 war Britain had been challenged and weakened by very heavy loss of life and by the cost, but also by an ideology which had been formulated in the British Museum library and re–imported from Russia where supposedly it was being put into practice.

This communist/socialist ideology was more or less embraced by the Labour Party which had been formed to give working people a voice in the nation’s affairs. It is important to draw a distinction between the bulk of working people who genuinely saw this party as representing their interests, and so called political activists who believe that Russia was some sort of workers’ paradise, an ideal to be admired and emulated.

Central to this ideology was a conflict between workers and capitalists. Wars were made by capitalists for profit and something which workers should have nothing to do with. Thus it was that in the 1930s when Britain was struggling to recover from the recent war, enduring world recession, and the threat from Germany re-emerged in the person of Adolf Hitler, the Labour Party was resolutely opposed to re-armament for another capitalist war.

This allied with a natural revulsion in the governing party for a repetition of the carnage of 1914–18 and the sympathy, even approval, of some for Hitler’s aims, led to a wilful blindness to the nature of the threat and to a consequent military and moral weakness. Hitler was not resolutely opposed. It followed that he was encouraged and the 1939–45 war ensued.

I have a personal recollection of that time. At the end of the summer term in 1939 my parents moved and I had to leave the rural grammar school where I had spent the previous 4 years. Before the autumn term began war was declared . My sixth form years were to be spent in Rotherham Grammar School. Rotherham was a steel and mining town and, as I discovered, a stronghold of socialism. In order to be considered intelligent let alone ‘an intellectual’ it was necessary to embrace the new philosophy to worship at the shrines of Marx, Engels and Lenin and to admire the philosophical writing of one Josef Stalin. Russia was Utopia. It was amusing to one who remained unconvinced to see how they justified the Russian attack on Finland which did not turn out too well, then the sudden pact with Hitler which took everybody by surprise, and finally how they dealt with the equally sudden attack on Russia by Germany.

Their principal response to the German invasion was an insistent demand for the opening of a second front in western Europe regardless of the fact that we possessed neither the means to mount one nor to sustain one, as the ill conceived ‘raid’ on Dieppe showed. At the same time they were resisting the induction of ‘workers’ by which they meant trade union members into the armed forces.

Military weakness was compounded in 1940 when German Blitzkrieg rapidly destroyed the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium had no option but to abandon its equipment and save what men it could across the beaches of Dunkirk. The subsequent remarkable Battle of Britain gave an otherwise weakly defended island a breathing space in which it could obtain basic supplies, like thousands of relatively old rifles from Canada and eventually more sophisticated equipment from the USA. The eventual participation of the United States in the war, but only after it had been attacked by Japan, was an essential element in the final defeat of the German Army, as its late intervention in the first world war may have been the final straw which persuaded Hindenburg to advise the Kaiser that the war should be brought to an end. It has to be said however that at the time a desperate offensive in 1918, rather akin to Hitler’s last throw of the dice in the Ardennes, had failed and morale in the German Army was disintegrating.

Across the Atlantic 3000 miles away and safe from attack the American economy had developed on a scale which was not feasible in Europe. Mass production and a revolution in finance, which allowed people to buy on the never never goods which they did not have the means to purchase outright, helped considerably. Over time it has become the world’s leading economy.

The second German attack and the subsequent Japanese invasions of south east Asia had further weakened Britain to such an extent that although finishing the war on the winning side it was virtually bankrupt. Worse than that events like the fall of Singapore and the sinking of great battleships by aerial attack had destroyed the aura of invincibility from which she had benefited. The considerable Japanese Navy and its carrier borne aircraft had forced the United States to build to match it in the Pacific so there was now another great Navy on the oceans of the world and belonging to a nominally friendly power.

It was in the logic of events that a time would come when the USA would assume the dominant role formerly played by the now impoverished Britain. When it came it was no accident but an act of policy. It was a failure of the special relationship to deliver a dividend.

The occasion was Suez which has been represented in some quarters as a military fiasco. It was not; it was a political misjudgement. President Nasser of Egypt nationalised the Suez canal. Prime Minister Anthony Eden saw this as a threat to the Empire’s sea lanes. He also saw Nasser as a potential Middle Eastern Hitler who should be stopped sooner rather than later. Lacking international sympathy Eden decided to take unilateral action. Allying with the French, who had more than a passing interest in the canal, and the Israeli’s, who had an interest in cutting Nasser to size, an attack was launched to seize the canal.

Unlike France and Germany where generous, if self interested, largesse from the United States in the form of Marshall Aid had been used for rebuilding and regeneration of industry in Britain, it had been squandered in the ideological pursuit of what might be called social justice; in the establishment of the Welfare State and social benefits unaffordable by a bankrupt nation.

The British Government was advised by its preferred economist John Maynard Keynes that survival was only possible if a massive loan could be obtained from the USA. His estimate of need was 5bn dollars. So it was that the Attlee government negotiated a huge loan; so it was that having squandered a substantial gift the British Government led by Clement Attlee came to be massively in debt to the USA.

As matter of current interest those loans were paid off in the spring of 2007, since when sterling has grown in value and resumed its role as a reserve currency for the central banks of the world. Such is the value of rectitude and the trust it engenders.

Having no particular interest in the Suez Canal this was a heaven sent opportunity to supplant Britain. President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, gave Prime Minister Eden to understand that unless the operation ceased sterling would be destroyed in world markets. As a debtor Eden had no choice but to give way. Perforce the operation ceased, a humiliating withdrawal ensued and the whole world could see that Britain was no longer the power that she once was.

So the United States is now the dominant nation of the English speaking world which has assumed a new significance since English is the Lingua Franca which has been adopted by the world. It is the language of commerce, of diplomacy, of air transport, of the internet. Have you noticed that BBC reporters around the world seldom have difficulty in finding people to interview in English. Somewhat bizarrely London is now the No 1 financial centre in the world, not New York

Given how much we have in common there is going to be a relationship between the two which is different from any which either will have with any other. It will not however preclude pursuit of national advantage.

There seems to be a desire amongst British politicians to behave as though they have the importance of former times. Perhaps that only has credibility if they are seen as under the wing of, or closely associated with, the American Eagle.

We have seen one version of that with Mr Blair. It is difficult to see what advantage has accrued to Britain as a result of involvement in the Balkans, in Iraq or Afghanistan. On the personal level it has got him a job in which he can continue to prance on the world stage.

In my view a British Prime Minister would have more influence in the world at the head of a well run, prosperous, independent nation speaking with the voice of sanity in world affairs and conscious of the legacy which the Commonwealth represents. There is very little sanity about and we do not have such a nation today. The special relationship should be an adjunct not an albatross.