The Commonwealth Games, which finished last week, turned out to be the great success that we had all hoped for. The host nation, Scotland, did an excellent job in organising and presenting the Games and it was wonderful to see so many athletes from across the world competing so hard to win medals for their countries.

As an Englishman, I was obviously delighted that England finished overall champions but that was almost by the by since the thing that impressed me most of all was the wide diversity of the competing nations.

To many, the Commonwealth is simply an anachronism representing, at is it does, the last reminders of the former British Empire. But what a reminder it is. Even a brief look at the location of member nations such as Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, Kenya, India and Australia is to take a lesson in world geography. All four corners of the globe touched by our tiny island.

It was all a long time ago of course, but not that long. History shows that all empires inevitably decline and fall and the beginning of Britain’s decline can be traced back to a date commemorated across the world earlier this week. That date was August 4th 1914, the beginning of the First World War, a war that claimed over a million British and Empire lives and sent the Empire on a downward financial spiral from which it never recovered.