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That Really Greats

It is nearly 6 years since Concorde made it's last flight. It was never liked by the Americans, they tried to ban it when it first flew on the grounds of noise. When it was first proposed, American carriers were poised to order it. It was seen as the future of Air Travel. Public opinion in America soon scotched that, so much so, that it ended up as a commercial disaster. The French and UK public were forced to buy the entire limited production run. As it won over the hearts and minds of those who travelled on it, and eventually the public at large, it became a much loved and profitable machine. The final nail in the coffin was the downturn in air travel following 11/9 and the prohibitive cost of modifying the fuel tanks with self sealing membranes to avoid a repeat of the Paris air crash.

I admit that Concorde was a joint effort with the French, but it was the last of a long line of things which made Britain Great. Now there is probably a lot to criticise about the British Empire. Slavery is frowned upon today, as is the Opium trade. Tea and coffee is grown under fair trade conditions and we spend £millions each year assuaging our guilt over the bad things we did 200 years ago. We rode roughshod over the people of other countries, using them for our own ends and subjecting them to some pretty horrific conditions. That said, we didn't treat our own people too well either.

Wipe away the undesirable parts for a moment and you can begin to see how Britain got the name Great Britain. We built the biggest ships, invented railways and took the concept to America and India, Africa and Australia. The world was moulded in our image. We invented the concept of industrialisation which brought prosperity to the world. In the mid 1800's Britain was the largest exporter of cotton products, steel, ships and many other commodities in the world.

So Britain has been reduced to a naughty child sitting in the corner. We have had our bottoms well and truly smacked and are in disgrace. We allow this guilt to cloud our judgement over everything. We charge off to war every time the Americans feel like using their vast armoury, rush to be first to agree in any conciliatory agreements being made in the world. Ban certain missiles in warfare zones because they are dangerous. Stick to the letter of each and every law that the EU introduces. And now that India is asking the West for £120Billion to reduce greenhouse gasses, doubtless Gordon and co. will be the first with their hands in their pockets. Well, our pockets.

In short we have gone from an empire, to the doormat of the world. I bet the Lockerbie bomber is not released because Hilary Clinton has said he should stay in jail. Despite the fact that there is more than a little doubt about over his guilt and that he will soon be dead from prostate cancer. I don't really care about whether he is released or not, I do care that he might not be the right man and that the real bombers are still free. I care even more that Britain will listen to what Mrs Clinton wants.

Extraordinary rendition is another case in point. For years we denied that we had anything to do with it and did not condone torture. How red faced are we now that we have been shown to be guilty? I imagine that George W Bush had no idea either, but one of his aides told him to tell Tony that they wanted to use our airfields as staging posts and it was done. Once again, America's puppet, once again falling further from the greatness that brought us an empire. How stupid does it make us look when we say that we don't want huge armed services and slash the budgets, then scamper off to fight whoever America says we have to this week with no aircraft, tanks, guns, clothing or bullets. Oh, and the helicopters that we do have can't go because the Health and Safety man says they don't have the approved amount of armour because that was left off in another economy drive.

Hardly the actions of a country that built an empire are they? Maybe we should host a summit to discuss the possibilities of war with no winners. Somehow I can't see the loony Muslim clerics playing fair on that.





This post first appeared on The Man In The Street, please read the originial post: here

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