WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- When Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom was born 80 years ago, she was heiress to the title Queen-Empress and the British Empire proudly girdled the globe. Or as one waspish Indian nationalist put it: "You know why they call it the Empire on which the sun never sets? -- because even God would not trust an Englishman in the dark."
But even at her birth, the Empire's twilight was already staring to loom. By the time Elizabeth took the throne 54 years ago, India had gained its independence, and exhausted by its heroic efforts in World War II, Britain was set on what seemed like a steady decline. Along with the power went the prosperity, at least as measured against other similar middle-ranking powers of Europe. By the time of her Silver Jubilee in 1977, Britain had sunk to the 7th rank among the world's leading economies, dropping behind a then-vibrant Italy, and appeared to be fading fast.
And then the cycle turned. Several factors were at work: the unexpected wealth of North Sea oil, the dramatic leadership of Margaret Thatcher and her defeat of the over-mighty labor unions, the bracing effect of competition after Britain joined the European common market, the burst of national unity that attended the quixotic victory in the Falklands War.
They combined to achieve a resurgence of national self-confidence and entrepreneurial vigor, so Britain now counts as probably the world's 4th-largest economy, although China may just be overtaking it. And while no other nation can match the American superpower, Britain counts as one of the great powers of the next rank.
In the capability to project state power through a combination of military, diplomatic, financial and institutional means, Britain has few equals. It sits as the top table of all the main instruments of global governance, from the United Nations to the European Union, from NATO to the International Monetary Fund. Britain has a further asset in the intimacy of its alliance with the lone U.S. superpower, its sharing of intelligence and nuclear and military technology -- not to mention language and culture and a degree of trust unique among nations.
For a small offshore island of Western Europe, Britain still punches far above its weight in world affairs, which is doubtless a source of considerable satisfaction to its Queen. She must have feared 30 years ago that her Monarchy was condemned to drift down into the bicycle-riding cuteness of her regal relatives in Norway and Denmark. She now has the comforting assurance that when her reign finally ends, she will leave Britain a far more prosperous and self-confident nation that when she took the throne.
And yet it is a very different place. Her birthday was marked by the publication of an opinion poll in the Daily Telegraph that showed 7 percent of voters are ready to back the far-Right British National Party in next month's local government elections and that 24 per cent "have considered voting BNP in the past or are thinking of doing so now."
For a Queen whose youth was spent in an Army motor pool in the war against Adolf Hitler, the readiness of a quarter of her people to vote for a party that was founded by Hitler's heirs must be distressing. For however much the BNP's current leaders cloak themselves in moderate and plausibly reasonable garb, their party was founded by a National Socialist called John Tyndall who used to dress up in paramilitary garb and could hardly wait to make his first trip to Germany to buy a pair of genuine jackboots.
Perhaps most troubling of all for the Queen, over 70 percent of the potential BNP supporters said that what really worried them was that Britain "almost seems like a foreign country."
This is not just the effect of mass immigration; Britain has less than half the number of immigrants, and less than a quarter of the number of Muslims, of its European partner France. It also includes the steadily widening income differential between rich and poor, the growing tide of drunkenness and violence and crime, and the erosion of old social certainties and comforts like neighborhoods and affordable housing, decent state schools and the welfare state.
Some of this the Queen knows only too well, from the experience of her own dysfunctional family and the hideously embarrassing soap opera of Prince Charles's marriage to the delightful but unstable Princess Diana. The old ways of social stability and deference, of Church of England and lasting marriages and a national media that felt it had a duty to educate rather than just pander and entertain, have followed the Empire into the mists of memory.
And one implication of all this that must trouble Her Majesty as she receives the genuinely affectionate birthday greetings of her subjects is that the future of the Monarchy she inherited is very far from secure.
Another new poll for Britain's ITV News this week suggested that while 52 percent of Brits think the Queen provides "good value for money," only 31 percent think the same of her son and heir Prince Charles. Yet another poll this month in The Times found that only 37 percent of Brits think that Charles should succeed his mother.
As the 80th monarch since William the Conqueror seized the English throne 940 years ago, the Queen is supposed to symbolize a deep and powerful sense of national history and continuity that binds her people together. It now seems to be faltering, and her heir does not seem likely to repair it.
So perhaps the most common birthday gift her subjects would like to give would be the hope that she goes on and on, perhaps as long as the 101 years of life that her mother enjoyed, because the sad fact is that in Elizabeth's wake loom troubled times for the world's most prominent monarchy.
