"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."
Cecil John Rhodes
A splendid quote which rather goes to prove the point I was trying to make earlier- valid in the 18th and19th centuries, rather less so now. We can say to ourselves (in a rather smug manner) 'we are the best because we are British'.
I'm afraid the world has moved on somewhat when that was a valid and verifiable point of view.
We are not so insecure
Yes we are, our planning assumption rely upon the Americans, whom so many here seem to despise, digging us out of the pooh in terms of intel, airlift, heavy armour, weapons supply, the list, whilst not endless is far too long. Seems to me we are very insecure as a nation, witness the dissolution and devolution that is happening, and at the same time centralisation of power in Europe. This is being carried out for the most part in a very stealthy manner but its ok because we know
One of the keys to being good at what you do, is to know that you are good at what you do
Another (and rather more important) key is to let everyone else know you are damn good at it. Which is why sending a gun boat used to be a good thing, now it just invites humiliation when the crew is captured and lose their iPods.
False modesty is a very British thing
False modesty is only any good when
everyone else knows it is false modesty. The problem is our people- the British nation- and, I suspect a large part of the rest of the world no longer see the subtle distinction because they have been told we are no longer very good and over the last 60 years have seen that with a very few exceptions we can't go it alone- ergo we are very good at what we do (actually quite debateable now I think), we just can't do a lot.
Having just read the above I feel very depressed. The world now is a very different place to when Britain could project power. Our only use now is to pick the crumbs from the table of the only superpower in existence,and I do mean the crumbs- remember the 'assurances' regarding technology on Dave- we are no longer trusted even within the 'Special Relationship' a term invented by us after WWII to lessen the blow of end of Empire. I think perhaps some contributors need to remove their rose-tinted spectacles.