Odd Hedberg wrote:
>
> Johnny,
> skip the politics on this list please.
> But seriously, see the new government as Your chance to join the
> rest of us civilised people in Europe. You Brits have to face it:
> Your Empire no longer exist and the sole surviving force that do
> take Your opinions for real are Your friends and neighbours in the
> EU. The citizens in Your various former colonies obviously don't
> give a damn, following the example set in 1776 by the Americans...
> Just my two bits of thoughts...
> Yours
> /Odd
>
> Johnny Storm: International racing car driver wrote:
> >
> > AGGGHHH, a socialist government has taken power in the U.K!
> > All classics are to be banned and petrol become consigned to the
> > history books. We'll all have to drive golf carts around and salute
> > to 100 ft tall bronze staues of Tony blair. the very fabric of our
> > tradition is to be swept away within days and theres nothing we can
> > do...
> > Whoops sorry, politics are verboten here!:-)
> >
> > Johnny Storm (soon to be sent to the salt mines for a decadent
> > lifestyle and capitalist leanings)
> > '83 Lada samara
>
> --
> Odd Hedberg
> Pomonagatan 4 International liaison secretary,
> S-74236 Östhammar Triumph Club of Sweden
> Sweden '70 Spitfire Mk3 FD82497LO Signal Red
> E-mail: odd@triumphclub.se
> Club URL: http://www2.passagen.se/triumph/
> Home Telephone: Int+ 46-1731 7131
> Geographical Position: N 60deg15min E 18deg23min
> ------------------------------------------------------------
Looks like you got the wrong end of the stick there, Odd. Unless I'm
very much mistaken, Sweden's in the EU.
And, despite the UK's rather stately decline, it still exports more per
capita than Sweden (whose economy is almost completely dependent on
exports) and has a higher GDP per capita. What's more, it's now
generally accepted that after its election success, Britain's Labour
party is the leader in terms of social democratic idealitstic
realignment. Watch carefully as Göran Persson struggles to drag Sweden's
Social Democratic party out of the steam age (and guess where he'll be
getting his ideas from) and note too the realisation dawning amongst
Sweden's trade unionists that democratic socialism doesn't work. It is,
to use an English expression, an ex-parrot.
A lesson too, in history. Socialism wouldn't have ever been but for
Britain, the Home of Free Speech, allowing Karl Marx the facilites of
the Brtish Library to write Das Kapital, at a time, incidentally, when
Sweden was still virtually feudal. Indeed, serfdom was still legal in
Sweden until 1939. Moreover, the Göta Canal wouldn't even have been
built but for British Engineers - the expertise simply wasn't available
in Sweden. Likewise Sweden's railways. Even today, when Volvo cars are
coming back into the spotlight, guess the nationality of the head of
Volvo's design department, or leader of the development programme for
the C70 coupé and convertible. That's right, they're both Brits. And
guess whose football games virtually every Swedish household tunes into
on Saturday afternoons: the Germans? The Italian? The Swedish? Uh uh.
It's the UK Premier League. And what language are we all using to
communicate across the globe - det är ju inte svenska, eller hur?
The delight with which some folks from less significant countries can't
contain whenever a British "failure" occurs is revealing. It reveals a
disturbing nationalistic jealousy and in this case, a certain lack of
sophistication. For your information, Johnny Storm was joking. Johnny
Storm is always joking. Johnny Storm (if that's his real name) is too
busy enjoying himself at university, attending the minimum number of
lectures and consuming the maximum amount of lager, to bother having to
think about politics. And this is perhaps the biggest lesson we Brits
can teach the world today: for heaven's sake, don't be boring.
Adam Turner
'74 TR6
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