The very notion of Great Britain’s ‘greatness’ is bound up with empire. Euro-scepticism and Little Englander nationalism could hardly survive if people understood whose sugar flowed through English blood and rotted English teeth.
By the end of the 1970s Britain was in a mess.
I was an expert skier who set his sights on going to the 1988 Olympics in Canada to represent Britain, and went from novice ramps to the 120-metre jump in five months. That’s possible only with utter focus.
A lot of the ‘leave’ campaign was centered around a thinly veiled xenophobia, just ‘control our own borders.’ It’s not a good look. I don’t think it represents Britain; I don’t think it represents the U.K. all too well. It breaks my heart for my generation in Britain who are going to suffer.
For centuries my father’s family lived on Britain’s biggest tidal river, the Severn, on which there was a huge trade with the interior, and through the Port of Bristol with America.
I want us to move as quickly as we can towards a free trade deal between the U.K. and the U.S.A. that would be good for both of us. That would also send a signal to the European Union that there’s a bigger world outside of the European Union, and Britain can manage just nicely.
The OBE, CBE and MBE are among the ways Britain honours its citizens for their contribution to national life. I wish we had agreed on a different form of words, but we haven’t and the decision to change the system is above my pay grade.
If our values are worth anything, we should stand up for them and live by them, both within Britain and across the world.
I own a home in Sweden, I rent in both Los Angeles and in Britain, and I’m constantly travelling.
I’ve always considered myself to be fiercely patriotic. I love Britain – its history and the down-to-earth attitude people have.
America: It’s like Britain, only with buttons.
Our leaders increasingly see fit to lecture the ethnic minorities on the need to integrate, including of course the need to speak English. What about the need, though, for Britain to integrate with the rest of the world?
The best of pop in our country is among the best of the arts that we do. And Britain does the arts as well as, and sometimes better than, anybody else on the planet.
In Britain, many people love the royal family, and other people don’t – but either way, we own them, and we have an opinion, and we know a lot about them. It’s as though they’re our own family.
A no deal Brexit would be a complete failure by the government to negotiate for Britain.
I mean, Britain is a country of successful Muslim businesspeople, teachers and educators, journalists. So, we have to say very strongly that the two million plus Muslims in Britain, the vast bulk of them make a huge contribution to our society, and they actually make it the vibrant society it is.
Our interests lie in attracting added value and talent to France as a result of Brexit, but also in having a balanced relationship with Great Britain. We must not sacrifice the short term for our bilateral relationship.
In America journalism is apt to be regarded as an extension of history: in Britain, as an extension of conversation.
If you want someone to call you a traitor or accuse you of hating Britain, try suggesting that Britain is a normal nation or that our history is remarkable but not exceptional.
I think people in Great Britain are a bit jaded sometimes.
The Britain I know is the Britain of Jo Cox. The Britain where people are tolerant and not prejudiced, and where people hate hate.
I never thought I’d end up living in Los Angeles while my children grew up in Britain, but here I am, and we are all making the best of it.
Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.
I hate this argument that says little Britain or something outside, or Britain is part of a wider Europe. We can both be within our trading relationships within Europe but we can also be a fantastic global trader.
It’s funny because I think that both France and Britain are known for their distinctive styles, and everyone says that France is so chic and elegant but I think, more than that, French women are renowned for dressing in what suits them.
I want Britain to be the home of successful competitive and stable financial services.
Marie Stopes had established the first birth control clinic in Britain; the whole question of informing women, especially those who were poor, about methods of contraception, began to be discussed.
It’s odd that I’m a big name in America and not known in Britain.
I grew up in kind of the last generation of Canadians who thought things that were happening in Britain were more important, almost, than what was happening in Canada. And my mother was fervently of that opinion.
I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.
I am very pro-royal. Britain without them would be a sadder place.
I hope Britain stays in the European Union, but I don’t want to decide for the British.
Barbara Castle should have been Labour’s – and Britain’s – first female prime minister. What a role model she would have been: passionate, fiery, and absolutely committed to social justice.
If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.
Faith in technocrats over politicians is not a trend from which Britain is exempt.
I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up.
Herbert, my father, was born in Britain but went out to Africa in his teens to join his father and built up an 18,000-acre ranch in what was then Northern Rhodesia, providing work for the locals. He was my hero when I was a boy.
Just as Donald Trump is abrogating America’s responsibility to lead the fight against climate change, Theresa May is evading Britain’s role.
I feel like there is a real lack of empathy – not just in American society, it’s definitely happening in Britain as well – and it’s heartbreaking that people can see something and not feel it.
I’m interested to see what happens with Fox News and phone hacking. I really can’t believe it just happens in Great Britain. Because really, who cares about just hacking phones over there?
Britain is relatively compact and much closer to the borders of the U.S.S.R. than anywhere in North America.
Our workforce is very co-operative, very flexible, easy to work with and one of the big selling points. The idea that Britain is still back in the labour market of the ’70s is utterly bizarre.
I think our people in Britain have a normative expectation of ethical conduct.
Britain’s energy markets were a mess in 2010.
We live in a world of strange priorities, where Kim Kardashian buying a Lamborghini creates international headlines, but children in Niger suffering from drought and children in Britain suffering from leukaemia go unnoticed.
In Britain, we’ve tended to replace the kind of architectural culture valued in much of Europe with an in-flight magazine lifestyle – all branding, marketing and ‘accessibility’, a word that usually means dumbing-down.
The economy has become seriously unbalanced. Its growth has not been driven by investment or by overcoming Britain’s long-standing weaknesses in investment and productivity, particularly skills. Instead, there has been a binge of debt-financed consumer spending.
German predominance is not all-encompassing. In foreign affairs and military matters, for instance, France and Britain still play a much bigger role. But across a large swathe of European policy, Germany has become much more than a first among equals.
I missed Britain. I’m from here and I never aspired to go to L.A. – it sort of happened by default. I loved being there. I found it a little bit difficult at first, but I found my way.
This is where I started life. This is where I went to uni. This is where the people I know are. This is my country, and when I put on my Great Britain vest, I’m proud, very proud, that it’s my country.
My entire political career has been based on building up Britain’s political standing and economic prosperity through our membership of the E.U. and the European project.
Stephen Fry is a master exponent of the English tongue. Some people might think that he is the most irritating man in Britain, but my wife and I love him all the same.
Germany’s Angela Merkel exudes an atmosphere of elderly exhaustion and pooped-out pessimism. Britain’s David Cameron, though by nature exuberant, feels he has to look and sound glum. And France’s leader, Francois Hollande, seems determined to drive every successful businessman out of the country.
Suppose a part of Britain or a part of America was taken away and given to the Jews as Israel. Do you think the Americans are going to sit quietly and say ‘Welcome,’ and all that? They won’t.
If you can speak English, and you can get a place on a proper course at a proper university, you can come to study in Britain.
The fact is that the United States does not need Israel. Our special relationship was not forged, as it was with Great Britain, in two world wars, not to mention a common language and, in significant respects, culture. It is based on warmth, emotion, shared values – and, not to be dismissed, a potent domestic lobby.
