Shapps Makes a Splash

Mere experts and citizens of nowhere have reacted with their usual humourless foreignness to a rah-rah by the Ministry for Motoring. An advertisement for the next thirty years of maritime adventure, during which the bulldog breed's long and happy relationship with brine will doubtless come in handy for establishing Empire 2.0 in those bits of the world that remain above the flood-waters, has been criticised for featuring images of ships used in commercial piracy and the slave trade. While it is difficult for Britons to avoid the knowledge that they once abolished the slave trade, comparatively little attention has been given to the few preceding decades of enthusiastic participation; although the day now fast approaches when we can once again allow our national pride to encompass such politically incorrect entrepreneurial buccaneering. The Ministry for Motoring offered the usual gracious expression of regret for the excessive sensitivities of others; and in all fairness, one can hardly expect a government which removes Chris Graybeing only to replace him with Michael Green and Sebastian Fox to show much ability at learning from the past.