When Nelson’s hand was ash and dust, his wake endured in steel and sail,
And every mast from Plymouth sound to Sunda bore the lion’s tale.
From Jutland’s roar to Falkland’s swell, Britannia watched with brow unbowed,
Her pennants flared in foreign winds, her ensigns tore through hostile cloud.
The sun would never set, they swore, on hulls that ruled from tide to tide,
For law was laid on cannon decks where liberty and sea-power ride.
Yet now the docks are rotted dreams, and rust weeps down the bo’sun's chain,
The ghost of Drake still stalks the strait, but finds his ocean throne in vain.
Behold the fleet, a fleet in name, whose engines wheeze, whose steel is worn,
With four in ten at anchor held, their battle teeth long since outworn.
The frigates rattle, stripped of scope, the subs are blind beneath the tide,
And bureaucrats with ledger pens command the helm their hands deride.
Astutes lie cold in cradle’s berth, while crewmates vanish, lost to pay,
And training halls are silent now where sea-kings once were formed from clay.
The carriers, those crownless queens, are fed upon their sister’s bones,
A fleet of lions muzzled mute, their growls exchanged for paper groans.
The minister with crimson tie, who’s never smelled the engine’s breath,
Proclaims a war with Russia’s fleet, while stoking fires that promise death.
He speaks of duty, honour, pride, yet knows not watertight from deck,
Nor how the Arctic’s silence hums beneath a Kalibr’s sunken wreck.
The Russian hulls are iron-brute, with teeth of Tsirkon fast and wide,
While Albion, with patched disguise, can scarce a missile mount with pride.
Yet louder still their chorus shouts, these lords who never held a chart,
They prime the gun, but send our sons in shells of steel without a heart.
Where once the call would stir the blood of boys from Devon, Clyde, and Tyne,
Now numbers shrink like winter’s tide, as hope deserts the old sea-line.
The engineers are ghosts unmet, the stewards dream of merchant wage,
While pay is docked and billets bare reflect a navy past its age.
The ships lie still, their keels unloved, their propellers dulled by idle rain,
And every post not filled in time becomes the sea-lord’s silent shame.
The forge is cold, the sparks are gone, the yards that built the dreadnought's frame
Are left to rust beneath the rule of those who play a coward’s game.
They scrapped the Nimrods in their shell, they let the Phalanx rust away,
They sold the codes of Neptune’s wrath for green reports and silver pay.
The Type 45s, with noble names, now wheeze and limp from port to port,
Too proud to die, too broke to fight, too cursed to even make the sport.
They feed the fleet with policy, not powder, oil, or iron round,
A navy run by spreadsheet clerks whose vessels fail before they’re drowned.
And while the foe grows steel and hull, we name a ship and pray it lives,
For nothing now is built to last where no one serves, and no one gives.
But sea is sea, and time is just, her ledger waits beneath the tide,
And those who cheat her ancient laws will find no place on honour’s side.
For all who trade their nation’s strength for vain applause or warlike lies,
Will stand before the masthead’s ghosts, when next the battle flags arise.
Let Albion’s sons remember well the iron keel their fathers bore,
Not for parade or pageant bright, but to defend the channel shore.
When next the flare goes up at dusk, when silence breaks with cannon’s wake,
We’ll know if Albion’s heart still beats, or if it drowned for politics’ sake.
(By John Shenton)
Royal Navy Decline and Political Delusion
In the long, winding annals of British history, few institutions have symbolised national power, continuity, and sovereign independence more profoundly than the Royal Navy. Once the beating heart of empire and guarantor of peace across volatile seas, the Navy was the embodiment of Britannia's might, her reach, and her unyielding resolve. Today, that legacy lies imperilled, not by a sudden and overwhelming foreign threat, but by the slow erosion of vision, courage, and honour among Britain’s political class.
At the height of its grandeur, the Royal Navy was not merely a military force; it was a projection of moral and civilisational order. It upheld trade routes, suppressed piracy, policed slave trafficking, and held the line against tyrannies and revolutionaries alike. From the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 to the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, it was the Navy that defended Britain’s shores and shaped its identity. Naval supremacy was not only a strategy; it was a civic religion.
Today, that proud lineage has been cast adrift. Despite resurgent geopolitical threats and an increasingly unstable world, the Royal Navy has dwindled to a force alarmingly small and structurally unready for modern warfare. Of its handful of frigates, destroyers, and submarines, less than half are consistently operational. Equipment breakdowns, outdated platforms, and the cannibalisation of carriers to keep others seaworthy mark a hollow shell of former maritime prowess. And this, at a time when our adversaries surge forward with renewed ambition and capability.
The root of this decline lies not in accident, but in political delusion and ideological betrayal. Governments of both major parties have, over decades, dismembered the Navy with bureaucratic scorn and strategic incoherence. Projects such as the Nimrod aircraft debacle, the underperforming Type 45s, and chronic underinvestment in recruitment and maintenance reflect not mere incompetence, but an astonishing abandonment of duty.
What is particularly damning is the behaviour of current officials who, despite overwhelming evidence of unpreparedness, bluster with warlike rhetoric. They summon the spectre of confrontation with Russia, a nation fielding dozens of modern submarines and a coherent naval doctrine, while Britain's own undersea fleet lies partially mothballed and understaffed. Defence Secretary John Healey and others speak of deterrence, but offer only the grim comedy of aircraft carriers short of aircraft, and destroyers too fragile for deployment.
It is not simply material collapse that marks the betrayal, but moral and philosophical abdication. A generation of political leaders, beholden to globalist abstractions and disinterested in national stewardship, have lost sight of sea power's centrality to British survival. The Royal Navy, once the spearpoint of a civilisational mission, is now treated as a relic, ceremonial at best, irrelevant at worst.
The betrayal is cultural as much as strategic. In an age where national service is derided, maritime tradition forgotten, and recruitment undermined by bureaucratic rot and social engineering, the deeper currents of decline are plain. The Navy was once a crucible where boys became men and men became Britons; today it is starved of candidates, coherence, and pride.
Yet the sea remains what it ever was, a realm of challenge and consequence. Our foes have not forgotten this. Russia builds. China expands. Even Iran and North Korea test their reach upon the waves. Only Britain seems content to drift, all the while invoking the ghosts of past glories without tending to their inheritance.
The future need not be fatal. Revival is possible, but it demands honesty, leadership, and national reawakening. It begins by acknowledging the scale of betrayal and the urgency of correction. To let Britannia slip beneath the tide, not by enemy hand but by self-inflicted blindness, would be a disgrace to the memory of every soul who sailed in her name.
Let the bells toll not for nostalgia, but for duty rekindled. Let Parliament remember that navies are not built in a day, nor reputations restored without sacrifice. And let the British people demand, once more, a fleet worthy of their island’s name and nature.
If we are to remain a nation, let us again be a maritime one, or not at all. (John Shenton)