What a load of old tosh

I'm going to fuel the fire of Benji's national pride debate by arguing that his post below is a load o' bollocks...Here's why.

The days of the British empire might have looked impressive in history books but all was not hunky dorey in blighty. Our men were so short the army had to lower its height limits, little kiddies toiled in dusty mills and people were so repressed they even made chair legs wear trousers. But we had spices, slaves and steam engines so everything was fine right? No diggity- if you want an era of tramps, vomit, stabbings and shit toothpaste: those were the days.

Nowadays it's the opposite. The Britain of today will look shite in history books in 50 years. Flooding, house prices, Jim Davidson, credit crunch. But actually we have plenty of stuff to be proud about. Sure we have our fair share of problems, but they're matters of politics, not of national pride. Put that flag away and just sort stuff out!

Britain's main asset is it's ability to "not make a big deal about things". So we have immigration from other countries and a couple of signs in Polish. That's nothing new and hardly a dagger pointed at Britain's manhood -no matter how much the Daily Mail makes us think so. Even if Britain becomes this "perfect nation" full of pride and power, the Mail will still argue we're all fucking doomed. Print as many "bus timetables in Swahili" as you want. As long as there's an English one, no one with common sense should complain. Bloody hell- there's enough English signs around the world to make us feel like complete idiots...

So we're not a superpower any more. Would we want to be? Even they have to make sacrifices. We had shit public healthcare and smog, the USSR was shunned like the class fat kid and the Americans have the burden of everyone hating them, even people who have never even heard of America. Do we really want to go through that all again? Chilled out countries like New Zealand, Canada and Sweden are hardly big cheeses in global politics but people respect them because they follow their own path and don't go out of their way to impress people. Hell-when nuclear war comes they could well be the last ones left on the map.

We can keep the fine ale, scotch eggs and eccentricities but weeping over our lost empire only makes us more weak. Get over it, eat a Polish pasty and move on.