The news from Copenhagen arrives with the quiet inevitability of a Nordic winter: Denmark has formed a new government. British diplomats, as the reports note, watch their Nordic ally closely. One must ask: why? Is it the historic bonds of trade, the shared anxieties over a resurgent Russia, or perhaps something more uncomfortable, a mirror held up to our own decaying political theatre?
Denmark, that small kingdom of hygge and social democracy, has long punched above its weight. Its people enjoy a welfare state that makes Britain's NHS look like a Victorian workhouse. Its politics, though not without its squabbles, retain a certain dignity, a seriousness of purpose that utterly eludes Westminster. We have Boris Johnson's clown car; they have the steady hand of Mette Frederiksen, returning for a third term. The contrast is almost too cruel to draw.
But let us draw it anyway. Our Foreign Office eyes Copenhagen not out of fraternal affection but out of a cold, strategic calculus. In a world where the American giant stumbles and the European Union fractures, small, stable nations become precious commodities. Denmark is a NATO linchpin, a guardian of the Baltic, a voice that carries disproportionate weight in Brussels. And yet, what does Britain offer in return? A nation so consumed by its own post-imperial tantrums, so lost in the fog of Brexit, that it can barely govern itself, let alone project influence.
The Danish model, however, is not without its own cracks. The new government, a coalition of the centre-left and centre-right, was born out of necessity, not vision. It is a government of survival, patched together to manage the rising tide of immigration scepticism, the cost of living crisis, and the quiet, gnawing fear of a neighbour to the east. In this, they are not so different from us. We all tremble before the same gods: Putin’s aggression, inflation, and the hollowing out of our middle classes.
Yet the Danes, with their characteristic pragmatism, have chosen to govern. They have not retreated into the fantasy of a glorious past or the hysteria of a catastrophic future. They have formed a coalition, given it a programme, and will now muddle through. This is the art of the possible, the very thing British politics has forgotten. We have elevated the impossible to a virtue: impossibly hard borders, impossibly low taxes, impossibly pure national identities. And where has it left us? Isolated, impoverished, and laughed at by our European neighbours.
It is telling that the British response to this Danish development is framed as observation, not engagement. We watch them, but we do not learn from them. We study their coalition management, their energy independence, their successful integration of migrants, and we file it away as a curiosity, a foreign specimen best kept at arm’s length. How very British. We prefer the comfort of our own delusions to the hard work of emulating success.
The new Danish government, led by Frederiksen, will likely survive its term. It will raise taxes, cut emissions, and maintain a robust welfare state. It will argue about immigration, but it will not tear itself apart. It will remain a loyal NATO ally, a champion of the Baltic states, and a thorn in the side of autocrats. And Britain? Britain will continue its slow descent into irrelevance, a once-great nation now merely watching the world go by.
There is a lesson here, but it is one we are too proud to hear. The Danes have shown that stability is not a relic but a choice. They have chosen to govern, to compromise, to face the future with open eyes. We have chosen nostalgia, division, and a tragicomic belief that our island story makes us exceptional. The diplomats watching Copenhagen might wish to take notes. Their grandchildren will thank them.
But I doubt they will. The British genius has always been for moralising, not learning. So let us watch Denmark succeed. Let us tut-tut at their high taxes and their long winters. Let us pretend that our own path, however chaotic, is somehow noble. And then, when the empire is truly dust, we can finally ask: what were we so afraid of?
