Are We Heading Towards Another...
Politics1 min ago
What The Usa Might Think Of Brexit
very funny..sort of accurate and the readers comments and the end is equally amusing.
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Thank you Rationalist for pointing out those programmes. I have not yet listened to them all but so far they pretty much match the impression I already had of the difference between the UK's view of itself and how the rest of the world sees the UK, it is often a widely differing picture. Like you, I found the Polish episode distinctly surprising and illuminating. It turns out the common thread is that foreigners see the modern British as fickle, self centred and backward looking - most of all an overall let-down. Some added what I have to say I myself have felt: Today the UK is genuinely backward.
There was a bonus nugget in the Polish episode, an informed summary of what some here on AB keep harping on: EU democracy or not. Also within that I see an explanation of why the press (and press freedom) in the UK scores so poorly in international comparisons (placed around no.40) - this time how even the most serious of the UK's press misrepresents EU facts.
Yep, surprise, surprise, foreigners are not swept away in undiluted admiration of the UK as the UK expects them to be. That is today's situation - interestingly there was a note of sadness and feeling sorry for the UK over its demise, not so much anger, bitterness or derision as some looking from the outside might have expected (among the episodes I have so far heard). Will the UK ever understand this and have a little rethink ?
There was a bonus nugget in the Polish episode, an informed summary of what some here on AB keep harping on: EU democracy or not. Also within that I see an explanation of why the press (and press freedom) in the UK scores so poorly in international comparisons (placed around no.40) - this time how even the most serious of the UK's press misrepresents EU facts.
Yep, surprise, surprise, foreigners are not swept away in undiluted admiration of the UK as the UK expects them to be. That is today's situation - interestingly there was a note of sadness and feeling sorry for the UK over its demise, not so much anger, bitterness or derision as some looking from the outside might have expected (among the episodes I have so far heard). Will the UK ever understand this and have a little rethink ?
Indeed, Tony Blair allowed unlimited entry to all EU citizens when every other EU country enforced immigration limits that were available under EU rules, leading to much greater immigration into the UK than into France or Germany, for example.
I have Polish relatives by marriage. Thre was so much sadness among them after this programme, because it highlighted the duplicity of the Brits. The Brits sold out Poland first when Poland was invaded in 1939, and then at th Yalta conference.
The programme from Singapore highlighted the inability of the Brits to fulfil their pre-war promises to protect the Singaporeans when Japan invaded.
The same impotence and is being played out in Hong Kong right now,as Xi Jinping plays the strong man and reneges on China's promise to maintain the one-country-two-systems approach for 50 years. The residents – to whom we made promises – see that those promises were empty.
It was this contrast between the impression or global strength the UK projected, and the reality of our lack of real power that caused such disappointment in the UK political class.
It was unsettling, but my Polish friends confirmed that it was not a distortion, as did my US family and my friends on Germany.
I have Polish relatives by marriage. Thre was so much sadness among them after this programme, because it highlighted the duplicity of the Brits. The Brits sold out Poland first when Poland was invaded in 1939, and then at th Yalta conference.
The programme from Singapore highlighted the inability of the Brits to fulfil their pre-war promises to protect the Singaporeans when Japan invaded.
The same impotence and is being played out in Hong Kong right now,as Xi Jinping plays the strong man and reneges on China's promise to maintain the one-country-two-systems approach for 50 years. The residents – to whom we made promises – see that those promises were empty.
It was this contrast between the impression or global strength the UK projected, and the reality of our lack of real power that caused such disappointment in the UK political class.
It was unsettling, but my Polish friends confirmed that it was not a distortion, as did my US family and my friends on Germany.
The UK is a has-been but you wouldn't think it from the way some trumpet their exaggerated and unrealistic views, including on AB. Actually, as you suggest (Rationalist), for decades and decades the UK got away with faking its might. In modern parlance it was a very successful PR project.
I know people in a place which never was a British possession or fought beside or against the British in any of its much vaunted wars (how wars dominate the British mindset). The British have, in the past 70 years or so, repeatedly treated that country with shameful arrogance, most recently just over a decade ago, even though the two are on paper allies and fellow founding members of NATO. On the occasion of every confrontation (UK "assault") the UK has ultimately come away as being humiliated/shamed by their own actions. Yet the people from the UK's then opponent country have repeatedly shown nothing but a spirit of reconciliation and willingness to forget only to then later receive more arrogance from the UK (the last event yet to be replaced by a repeat of the cycle - it's the UK's turn ?).
One has to wonder when, or perhaps whether, the UK can see itself realistically - perhaps once those now over 50, or is it 30, are dead ? Maybe sooner if the UK ceases to exist, but would that then be in all its constituent parts, especially the biggest one ?
I know people in a place which never was a British possession or fought beside or against the British in any of its much vaunted wars (how wars dominate the British mindset). The British have, in the past 70 years or so, repeatedly treated that country with shameful arrogance, most recently just over a decade ago, even though the two are on paper allies and fellow founding members of NATO. On the occasion of every confrontation (UK "assault") the UK has ultimately come away as being humiliated/shamed by their own actions. Yet the people from the UK's then opponent country have repeatedly shown nothing but a spirit of reconciliation and willingness to forget only to then later receive more arrogance from the UK (the last event yet to be replaced by a repeat of the cycle - it's the UK's turn ?).
One has to wonder when, or perhaps whether, the UK can see itself realistically - perhaps once those now over 50, or is it 30, are dead ? Maybe sooner if the UK ceases to exist, but would that then be in all its constituent parts, especially the biggest one ?
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