Britain is not a basket case

It’s a dinner party in Brussels and I try to turn the conversation to the war in Ukraine. My host is having none of it. She is determined to initiate another round of discussion on the theme of ‘isn’t Britain a basket case?’ From bitter experience I know that I am in for a lengthy diatribe about ‘nothing works’ Britain. 

At times it feels as if there is a veritable crusade targeting Britain. Media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic constantly refer to Britain as if it is a country in the throes of an existential breakdown. 

‘Britain is undergoing a full-blown identity crisis’, announced a New York Times reporter, before adding, that. We are a ‘hollowed-out country,’ ‘ill at ease with itself,’ ‘deeply provincial,’ and engaged in a ‘controlled suicide’. 

Another commentator in the New York Times, Richard Seymour ostentatiously revels in Britain’s supposed misery. He contends that Brexit has cut Britain ‘down to size’ and, for good measure, that the nation is ‘economically stagnant, socially fragmented and politically adrift’.