Where would we turn in a crisis?

However, it’s perhaps not too early to comment on some of the more curious features of what some are calling the revolution of the “internet generation”, as though popular uprisings never occurred before people could tweet each other about the next demo.

The military takeover when Mubarak finally went was widely expected and apparently widely welcomed, inside and outside Egypt. While revolutions often end this way it struck me as an odd manifestation of “people power”; that such a pillar of the status quo should be hailed as a liberator wasn’t how we westerners expected revolutions to work, I thought.

But is that true? Would-be satirists have already compared the coalition Government to Mubarak, and dramatists have previously speculated on whether the British military would launch a coup to oust an overly left-wing regime.

But what if things panned out slightly differently? What if anti-cuts demonstrations turned again to violence on the streets, perhaps coinciding with strikes hitting public services and transport?

What if the coalition began to unravel, with both Clegg and Cameron assailed by anxious sections of their parties as austerity hit the middle classes, as per Kenneth Clarke’s warning, prompting jitters in the City and Washington worrying about “destabilisation”?

What if things looked to be spinning out of control, there were crowds in Trafalgar Square and armoured personnel vehicles started rolling in? And then a figure in uniform stepped forward and, instead of reading the Riot Act, said something like: “Don’t worry. We’re on your side. Just go home and we’ll sort it all out. We’ll rescind the most unjust cuts and bring stability to our beloved nation. Once we’ve done that we’ll return to barracks we can have elections again.”

I wonder how many people would breathe a sigh of relief, accept the constitution had been “suspended”, forget about the disastrous record of military regimes across the world and put their trust in the senior officers and the civil servants and business figures brought into their “emergency cabinet”. I suspect quite a few would do just that, even if remaining dissenters were dealt with “firmly but fairly”, and many would cheer if dissident politicians were relocated to the Tower of London. And Washington might think stability made up for the loss of democracy.

My point here is not to suggest Britain’s top brass are actively planning to take over if the coalition suddenly collapses; it’s to ask who most British people would turn to if our already uncertain world got much more frightening.

In my view this country is facing a crisis of leadership greater than any in living memory.

Longstanding disillusion with politicians turned to disgust in the wake of the expenses scandal, and the coalition emerged from a General Election in which no party gained decisive support.

But the malaise has spread further. We discovered our financial whizzkids, whose lavish rewards were resented but who were tolerated for supposedly driving our economy, had actually fuelled a false boom and we would all suffer bailing them out.

As the recession bit, anger and cynicism grew towards bosses tightening the collective belt, a process that mostly started in private firms and is increasingly hitting the public sector.

Leaders of all sorts and at all levels are being questioned and criticised, over both their morals and their basic competence – unfairly and simplistically perhaps, but such criticism is now a fact of life in the UK.

Amid all this our military are remarkably popular and respected, despite (perhaps because of) their values and lifestyles being quite different to those of the rest of us.

So, perhaps it’s not so surprising to see Egyptians welcoming their army into power.

After all, who would we trust in a crisis?