How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan, 1997-2022

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Snell’s position, however, is not that another military intervention would have been desirable as such. The Cold War added further complexities, as Britain attempted to insulate former colonies from the influence of the Soviet Union. Once the fighting started, the naïve idea that we would help rebuilt the nation was thrown in the bin and ‘the centres of Sangin, Musa Qala and Now Zad were reduced to rubble.

In 2013 George Osborne, Cameron’s chancellor of the exchequer, spearheaded a new approach to China, moving away from criticisms of human rights abuses to focusing on trade, investment and economic opportunity. The journalists, think-tankers and politicians who broke Britain have all delegated the blame for it onto the “wokerati”.

Later, says Snell, the UK claimed – and it was widely reported – that we had installed a magnificent renewable energy turbine in northern Helmand, that would illuminate classrooms. Instead of going out in the world claiming to have a better understanding of what is good for most people outside Britain than those people have themselves, first, we should spend the time working out what it is we think is good for the people of Britain, what sort of country we want to be. Rather than transforming into some post-economic Eden of good vibes, it becomes bitter, flailing, and nonsensical. The ending of empire was calculated upon the basis of Britain’s interests rather than those of its colonies. He thinks that Britain might well want to rejoin the single market a generation f

Although British media worry about robots taking everybody’s jobs, the reality is closer to the opposite. It's scarcely different from what Russia is trying to do in Ukraine, the only difference is that we told ourselves it was a noble cause. He remains unmatched among modern broadcasters for impassioned analysis, biting irony, heartfelt sympathy and sheer rhetorical flourish. At first sight Snell’s position seems slavishly contrary, as though he thinks that maybe Britain should have lost more lives in Syria fighting in a truly hellish sectarian nightmare with no winners.

The most astonishing irony is that the Taliban were not even popular in Helmand, but predictably gathered followers as the British dug in, and were later succeeded by an aggressive US force, from 2014. Even as he gags, no one’s going to ask him any awkward questions about recent events at the Cenotaph.