“Yes, very happy to. So. You see. I would regard the privatization of the military and police as a breakthrough. Absurd to think that a fickle state apparatus holds a monopoly on violence in its hands. It belongs under the control of a sovereign, nonpartisan board of people for whom it’s important to maintain order and stability in the country. I’m conservative in a good way.”

Says the earl.

He understands this to mean that he longs for a Great Britain that exists exclusively in BBC series.

“During my childhood,” says the earl, “the contours were relatively clear. There were the Highlands, Cornwall, et cetera—places you went on holiday to your manor and it smelled of hay. The stallion grazed on grass moistened with dew. The English stallion. Life in the cities was orderly and the structures tried-and-true. A calm, friendly atmosphere reigned. Those whom tradition and the labor of their own hands had brought prosperity didn’t mix with the simple, industrious fellow citizens. Typical Englishmen strolled in Hyde Park, kept themselves tidy, and respected government authority. Woman and man knew their places in the bedrock of the body politic. Woman: internal. Man: external. Both important. Both according to their worth. Bearing children, looking after them. Hunting, conquering. Soft and hard. No ambiguities. No misunderstandings. An agreeable sense of organization existed in the country, which precipitated ever-increasing dividends and allowed Great Britain to become one of the most powerful empires ever.”

Sir Ernest longs for a time when words like morality, trust, and pride were used. He wishes for an orderly manageability and tidiness that he no longer sees. When he looks around he gazes into an abyss of filth, he sees rubbish in the streets, decay in the faces, people on the side of the road, women who are aggressive and unladylike, men wearing laughable women’s clothing. He doesn’t see a cohesive unity of Britons loyal to the crown, but rather splintered groups of immigrants, feminists, Blacks, and white Nazis. Nobody can tell him that anyone could be happy amid this disorientating mess. “When the acquisition of goods,” the earl continues, “is the only gauge of a person’s success in life, then the system falls apart through nonconsumption. The human being. Here I’ll pause for a moment. And I believe, the person entrusted to us, the person calling out for leadership and rules, for a controlling hand to keep things in check, needs a handrail to grab hold of along the frightening path of his short life.” Said the earl.