#britain

I certainly didn't concur with Edward on everything, but I was damned if I would hear him abused without saying a word. And I think this may be worth setting down, because there are other allegiances that can be stress-tested in comparable ways. It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance, and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical remarks about the old country, but would pull oneself together and say a word or two if it was attacked or criticized in any nasty or stupid manner by anybody else. It's family, in other words, and friends are family to me. I feel rather the same way about being an American, and also about being of partly Jewish descent. To be any one of these things is to be no better than anyone else, but no worse. When confronted by certain enemies, it is increasingly the 'most definitely no worse' half of this unspoken agreement on which I tend to lay the emphasis. (As with Camus’s famous 'neither victim nor executioner,' one hastens to assent but more and more to say 'definitely not victim.') ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#britain #britishness #camus #edward-said #family

It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless. ↗

— Robert D. Kaplan

#cliche #days #different #empire #global

I know some of my parents' friends think 'Little Britain' is in incredibly poor taste. But swimming the Channel? You can't really say anything negative about that, can you? There's nothing better than making your parents happy. The glee on my father's face that day was amazing. ↗

— David Walliams

#amazing #anything #better #britain #channel

I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in Britain, admiring but at the same time questioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can. ↗

— Lee Kuan Yew

#admiring #better #better job #britain #i

Britain is doing brilliant things around the world and that is why I described as a 'superpower on development.' ↗

— Andrew Mitchell

#brilliant #britain #described #development #doing

The first war zone was declared by Great Britain. She gave us and the world notice of it on the 4th day of November, 1914. The zone became effective Nov. 5, 1914. ↗

— George William Norris

#britain #day #declared #effective #first

I've always considered myself to be fiercely patriotic. I love Britain - its history and the down-to-earth attitude people have. ↗

— Gary Numan

#attitude #britain #considered #down-to-earth #fiercely

Britain is a textbook case of how growing inequality leads to economic crisis. The years before the crash were marked by a sharp rise in remortgaging and the growth of 0 percent balance transfer credit cards. By 2008 the UK had the highest ratio of household debt to GDP of any major economy. ↗

— Frances O'Grady

#balance #before #britain #cards #case

The backwoodsmen are muttering about making Britain's draconian union laws - already among the toughest in Europe - harsher still. And parts of the media will continue to attack public service pensions, as if school meals staff, refuse collectors and healthcare workers have no right to a decent retirement. ↗

— Frances O'Grady

#already #among #attack #britain #collectors

In the industrial revolution Britain led the world in advances that enabled mass production: trade exchanges, transportation, factory technology and new skills needed for the new industrialised world. ↗

— Lucy Powell

#britain #enabled #exchanges #factory #industrial