Battle-Hungry Brits

http://www.thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?7738-Battle-Hungry-Brits


Reading John Le Carre's latest book, Our Kind of Traitor (and living in England for the past few months), has set me thinking a little about Britain's current place in the world.

Back in the first decades of the twentieth century, atlases depicted much of the land surface of the globe in pink, the color of the British Empire and its dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and much of east and west Africa, Oceania, the Caribbean, the Middle East, etc.). Today politicians and economists say the country is in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. There are across-the-board budget cuts, a major trade deficit, severe unemployment and declining industries and services. Even in Europe, Britain plays second or third fiddle, its economy lagging behind, or way behind, Germany's and France's.