In the voice of Winston Spencer Churchill, published from On High.

As I gaze down from the eternal battlements of Heaven, my heart is heavy with dismay at the state of the English-speaking world. The great democracies for which so many sacrificed their lives – men and women who stood in the breach against tyranny – now falter under the weight of their own incompetence, corruption, and ideological decay.

When the cannons fell silent in 1945, it was not merely a victory over the Axis powers; it was a testament to the resilience of liberty, democracy, and the indomitable human spirit. The English-speaking peoples, united by shared principles and a fierce devotion to freedom, emerged as the vanguard of a better world. Yet now, in the light of this day, it seems we have squandered their sacrifices, allowing the triumph of freedom to curdle into complacency, mediocrity, and moral confusion.

A Crisis of Leadership

The leaders of today inspire no confidence in the hearts of their people, nor admiration from their allies, nor fear in the hearts of their enemies. Where is the vision, the courage, the moral fortitude that ought to define leadership in a time of crisis?

Instead, we see in the English-speaking democracies a collection of bureaucrats and careerists, scurrying like mice to the tune of opinion polls and Twitter mobs. These men and women do not shape the tide of history; they are adrift upon it. The fire of conviction has been extinguished, replaced by the pallid glow of expediency.

Such leadership would have faltered against the Blitz, cowered before Hitler, and abandoned the cause of liberty at Dunkirk. Yet today, they are entrusted with the legacy built by those who gave ‘the last full measure of devotion’.

The Betrayal of Sacrifice

What would the fallen of Normandy, Tobruk, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima say if they could see what has become of the freedoms for which they laid down their lives? Would they recognise in the cacophony of modern politics the principles they fought to protect?

Freedom of speech, the cornerstone of any free society, is now under siege, not by external enemies but by the very institutions sworn to defend it. Across the English-speaking world, censorship creeps in under the guise of ‘misinformation’ and ‘hate speech’, concepts so malleable that they threaten to crush dissent entirely. To think that the blood spilled in the second world war was to preserve a marketplace of ideas, only to find it reduced to a sterile hall of mirrors, where only approved voices are heard!

Education: The Collapse of Reason

The classroom, once the crucible of thought and the nursery of free minds, has become a factory of indoctrination. Grammar and mathematics – the foundations of logic and communication – are in decline. In their place, a parade of absurdities marches under the banner of ‘critical theory’, a Marxist fever dream that sows division and resentment rather than unity and understanding.

This intellectual rot would have been met with incredulity and scorn in the dark days of the war, when we relied on disciplined reasoning and practical wisdom to guide us through the storm. How dismayed would those who endured the Blitz be to see children taught not to solve problems, but to blame their neighbours for them?

Joseph Stalin, from his well-deserved place in the infernal regions, must be delighted. He who sought to undermine the West with lies and division now sees his ideological progeny thrive, not in Moscow, but in London, Washington, Canberra, and Ottawa. What irony that those who defeated him on the battlefield should now succumb to the very poison he sought to inject into their societies.

The Path to Renewal

It is not too late to right this ship, though the hour grows perilously late. The West must awaken to the truths that once made it great: that freedom is not granted but earned; that education is not a tool of ideology but a quest for truth; that leadership is not a career but a calling.

We must demand more of our leaders, more of our institutions, and more of ourselves. We must remember that democracy, like a garden, must be tended with care, lest it be overrun by weeds.

And above all, we must rekindle the spirit of liberty that burns in the heart of every free person. That spirit cannot be extinguished by ideologues or cowards, so long as there are those willing to fight for it.

A Charge to the Living

I address this not to the leaders of today, who have proven themselves unequal to the task, but to the people. You are the heirs of a great legacy, a legacy purchased with the blood and toil of generations who believed in the enduring promise of liberty.

Rise to the occasion. Demand better. For the sake of those who came before, and for the sake of those yet to come, do not let this moment be the one where the West falters and falls.

History will judge you, as it has judged us. Do not let it write of you that you squandered the greatest inheritance ever given to a people. Stand firm, and remember that in your hands lies the fate of the free world.

Epilogue

I sign this not with despair, but with hope – for while the present may be bleak, the future remains unwritten. May you write it well.

Yours in eternal vigilance,

Winston S. Churchill