Watching from Germany, I am endlessly struck by the gap between the bombast of the UK's election campaign and the grim state of the country at large. Observing the country's politicians, an uninformed foreign observer would conclude that the UK is either a fabulously wealthy country and a world power on the scale of the US or China, capable of unilaterally shaping the terms of global affairs (the Tories), or a naturally fabulously wealthy country trodden underfoot and deprived by an undemocratic occupying force which manages to be nonetheless safe, democratic and prosperous without the help of any regional alliances (Labour). Both are fantasies.
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