Cultural Britishness

In these unstable times, it's refreshing to note that the great British virtues remain undiminished. Our self-complacent insularity, xenophobic boorishness and thick-headed snobbery have been on garish display for some years; so it is pleasant to see that our world-beating powers of hypocrisy are at last gaining their due. At a time when Her Majesty's Government regards economic chaos and fiscal meltdown as a price worth paying for escaping the beastly beaters of Nazi Brussels, and denounces anyone who disagrees as a citizen of nowhere; at a time when Her Majesty's Government refuses to guarantee the rights of EU taxpayers in Britain and is plotting a special database state just for them; at a time when the best of British diplomacy consists in arming Islamic extremists and sucking up to the Trumpster and his hydrophobic head-tribble, the Recrudescent Imperium has proclaimed itself ready and fully committed to hosting the European Capital of Culture 2023. Non-European cities have held the title before, but not while their countries' respective governments were denouncing Europe as a threat to their national sovereignty and a drag on their international trade. With Gallic understatement, the European Commission's director for culture and creativity has said that the 2023 event "could be a problem".