Friday 16 March 2012

Cameron insults the wider Anglosphere with yet more 'Special Relationship' guff

According to a report in the Metro on David Cameron's ongoing visit to the United States:

"The prime minister was treated to a 19-gun salute, a review of the troops and marching fifers in colonial-era uniforms as 7,000 guests gathered to hear Mr Cameron describe the two countries as the 'united states of liberty and enterprise'."

Ah! That well-known 'Special Relationship'. 

British Prime Minister's come cheap, obviously. Just throw on a few syrupy, meaningless words, a trip on Air force One and you can take what you please. 
Uneven extradition treaties? Certainly Sir!
Whip up xenophobic hatred against a non-existent company called 'British Petroleum'? We understand!
Pressure the UK over the sovereignty of 'Las Malvinas'? No problem!

The myth of the Special Relationship is a very English Upper Class construct. Like all the best English Gentlemen's clubs, membership is designed not just to admit like minded chaps but also to specifically exclude those who aspire to join but just can't quite make the grade.

Having had to grudgingly admit the reality of American supremacy, but deeply infected with 'Top Table Syndrome', British politicians turned their backs on the reality of Anglosphere common culture in favour of a quite artificial  exclusive relationship. 
The 'Special Relationship' is the other side of the coin to our membership of the European Union. The paradox of both is  that  they bolstered feelings of political superiority at the same time as  substantially weakening our position internationally. We have become enslaved to both, whereas if we had kept our independence and nurtured our Commonwealth links we would now be a proud, free maritime trading nation. Not a nation politically at the top table, perhaps, but one with more freedom, more wealth and  a much, much  surer sense of our own identity.

There is, alas, no end in sight to this embarassing pantomine, or to the gratuitous insults we throw at those Anglosphere cousins we have 'blackballed' from our silly club. Presumably Cameron would have us believe they don't value liberty or enterprise the way the United States and Britain do.
It amazes me they still want to deal with us at all. Perhaps they do so out of pity.