This is the long slide from the highs of "cool Britannia", with acceleration points at 2008 and 2016. There was a slight "now what?" vibe at the Millenium, coupled with a sense of "the end of history" that we could now all relax into liberal technocracy by day with a bit of a party at night.

The lack of vision has slowly turned into a lack of hope. The huge industry marketing "fear of the other" is succeeding. Britain's always had its "community solidarity" feeling, but it also has uniquely British kinds of sullen jobsworthness, disengagement, complaining with no intention of fixing anything, resentment, and parochialism. Those are surfacing more.

The retreat of the Empire has left the governing structures intact, but on a shrunken scale. The devolved nations are treated like colonies which must be reined in from the centre periodically. London has abandoned the idea of travel to distant Manchester as too expensive, in favor of hoarding resources for a shrinking set of blue non-urban counties.