Jolly Good Show

 

My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

My country, 'tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing:
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims' pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring!

Or “God Save the King” as the British might sing.

The United States and the United Kingdom/Great Britain/England are different countries on opposite sides of the pond, the Atlantic Ocean. They are two great countries separated by a common language. (Cue appropriate spit take by an American hearing a Brit say he is going to “knock up”, by which he only means “call on”, an old girlfriend). They are also two countries with very different forms of government. In the United States, the executive and legislative functions are completely separate. Under the British parliamentary system, the executive and legislative functions are combined. In the United States, this would be as if MAGA Mike Johnson was also the head of the executive branch.

The Conservatives/Tories have had a  recent run of 13 years in office that is likely to change in the election later this year. According to some polls,  the opposition to the Tories, the Labor party, have a better than 20% advantage among likely voters. It is so bad that while the ruling and minority parties are supposed to sit on opposite sides in the House of Parliament, this may not be possible if there are too many members of the ruling party. The minority party is supposed to also form a shadow executive branch, but it may not have enough members to form this branch. If Brexit and its aftermath have been a lot of fun, just wait, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Meanwhile, as bad as things are in the USA, they could be worse. MAGA Mike has a hard enough time serving as Speaker of the House. Imagine if he was President as well!

Technically I am aware that the United Kingdom describes Great Britain AND Northen Ireland, and England is only one country in  Great Britain, along with Scotland and Wales, but the United Kingdom parliament, is the British or English, parliament as far as Americans are concerned. Our bad. And I realize that Brexit has created difficulties between the Irish Republic which is an EU member and Northern Ireland which is no longer an EU member, but who share a land border. The fact that this land border has attracted so much consternation, must amuse the Swiss, who seem to have managed an EU/non-EU land border with no difficulty for many years. No one tell the Swiss that this is an insurmountable problem, okay?