Xena, Simon is still pissed that we escaped the grasp of crazy King George III.
The plain fact is that when you're the King on the Mountain, everyone wants to knock you down and take your place. Apparently that goes for cousin Simon, too.
Perhaps, Sir Simon, you should remove that lumber yard from your own eye, the better to see the plank in ours. You trigger crowd response when you, a foreigner, start going off on the US of A. You've got your own country, pick on it for a change. You couldn't possibly have the perspective we have of and for our own country. We live here after all and you don't, therefore you haven't walked one inch in our mocasins. And Lord knows there's plenty to find fault with concerning the UK. I mean, after all, you let the commies sneak in their programs and policies a tenth of a millimeter at a time and now you look around and wonder what's wrong with your economy. That's easy, you're letting the bleeding hearts on the left suck the substance out of the producers and giving it to the non-producers - net gain: ZERO. Idealism gone berserk.
francois
P.S. NO, there will NOT always be an England. More's the pity.