Given the type of people the Pythons were (British Oxbridge men hand-picked by the major producers) and the time period, it has to be, right?

And they’d have a point, if the supposed great development benefits of being a British resource colony had ever materialised.

Sure, they built (limited) railways, but somehow India was never as rich as it was before colonisation. Japan did quite well by contrast. I’ll go ahead and say Roman provinces saw more development, mostly because the iron age default was total stagnation and infighting. Even there, it’s possible living in Rome was worse in some way which is not visible in the archeological record.