It's too convoluted to explain without writing a huge thesis. I was trying to explain to !Viva Hate! but gave up because, even though I've studied it extensively and live here, I can't make much sense of it. My solution is to completely bin the whole received opinion and start from the basics. There's 2 islands geographically with various political tribes and cultural tribes who over centuries have remixed themselves into a bizarre melting pot. Most of the people on the island of Ireland long ago had enough of some of the Norman Tory Whores campaigns of mass murder and broke away, but their own leaders turned out to be bonkers as well, so there's a huge Irish presence on the island of Britain for economic refugee reasons. The 'United Kingdom' concept is to do with one 'royal' family and a bunch of in-bred aristocrats trying to run the place since 1066. "British" means what you want it to mean, depending on your underlying ideological perspective, but if you were born or live on the island of Britain you are, to some extent. currently British. If you live on or were born on the island of Ireland you are, to varying degrees, Irish. There are places like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands who are something else altoghether and they get really angry if they're called 'just British'. The Nazis invaded the Channel Islands so lots of Brits don't like the idea of recognising them as it means accepting we were under his thumb even slightly. Also, they are posh ponces and closer to France than Britain and full of snooty tax exile banksters. A lot of the seriously crazy people from these islands left/escaped/were expelled to American and the Antipodes. In America, they were finally free to be completely nutso and form the Tea Party in Appalachia whilst watching Fox News in their double-wide mobile,etc. We're glad those types pissed off, as we're now increasingly agnostic or atheist. Only Queen Elizarbeast 11's personality stop the Disunited Kingdom disintegrating, when her loopy son Charles takes over, it will all kick off as he'd have us all back with a scythe in the fields. Danny Boyle managed to single-handedly destroy the United Kingdom by naming his Olympic Opening Ceremony "Isles Of Wonder". It was the single most revolutionary art terrorist event ever to happen here, it was for us, we didn't give a damn what the rest of the world thought. We (or some of us) went all over the world enslaving other people, now complain cuz some of their kids have turned up to make London the most exciting (and expensive) place on the planet. That's why I know loads of Yanks who love it here despite the taxes and the weather (and they love not facing bankruptcy if they get appendicitis, etc).
The funniest comment on Thatcher's death was on Twitter by someone called "Diana.In Heaven" who tweeted: "No, she's not here!"
I am seriously curious about America as they might destroy the world like the Brits tried to do. This article from Joe Bageant is really, really good. In describing America he provides an extraordinary insight into the history and culture of these Isles of Wonder, a culture which,as far as I can see, is the most influential in history, for good and for ill. The whole mess started here, so it's plausible that the solutions might also emerge from this absolutely bonkers melting-pot cauldron of wet islands off the North West coast of Europa. Or from America. Same place, mostly..
http://www.dailypaul.com/133101/how-the-scots-irish-screwed-up-america
