Who doesn't love a nice bit of well balanced exceptionalism? It's a very unhealthy characteristic that the British people have been hung up on for a little too long. It's not exclusive to the Brits either, plenty of other nations, tribes, ideologies and families suffer from it. A common human problem. Yes, it's the cancerous, deluded and incestuous blind spot of exceptionalism. Baseless and incompetent exceptionalism I should say. When you just can't deliver. Ever.
I was thinking about the HS2 debacle, a fine example of a country actually over reaching in trying to resolve an infrastructure problem by simply throwing money and grand designs at it. Maybe we don't need really fast trains like the Japanese, maybe we just need safe, clean, reliable and well run trains that actually get to their destinations. I'm pretty sure most people would also settle for a railway system that had reasonably priced fares and comfortable rolling stock and systems manned by professional and competent staff.
During Covid the idiot PM bragged about the UK having a "world beating track and trace system". As if, at that time being a world leader in that was important. We just wanted something that actually worked; it was of course never delivered. "World beating" trades deals were bound to follow on from Brexit they said. We've seen nothing like that nor any of the exceptional and five star outcomes that were promised by those bubble headed liars. But enough people bought into that nonsense, the undeliverable promises of privileged clowns who don't actually understand how anything (other than self promotion) works in the real world.
So spare us from the overblown and exceptional. Just gives us things that work. Fix the roads and railways to a reasonable standard, invest in teachers and education, build decent homes, make the legal system fair for all, give people the chance of healthy lifestyles and support the NHS, sort out corporate fraud and fix pensions and benefits, make efforts to curtail environmental damage and look after critical infrastructure, try to help the people who need it, wherever they come from.
Don't act as if you're still at primary school and have to brag about the size of your father's business or your trust fund's resilience. Don't try to have the biggest boat, weapons, ceremonial swords and royal family gatherings. Don't try to piss further than the USA, China or Russia; clearly that wont end well. Don't mock nations that are growing and struggling to resolve their own internal problems. Don't strut like Mussolini was your drunk uncle, believing God's always on your side somehow. Just don't be dickheads. Be competent and do ordinary things to the required standards.
Sorry, just another itchy thing I had to get out of my system.
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