On the whole the British are (as you would expect) enthusiatic about Americans, with 81% saying they like them as people and only 11% saying they don't. This margin is the largest since at least 1986.
When asked which is most important to Britain of the US, Europea and the Commonwealth, a different story emerges. 50% say Europe, 29% say the US and 19% say the Commonwealth. On Iain's site I said I thought this was important, given the prevailing view that the British public are vehmently anti-European and want to join Nafta at the first drop of a hat. I still think this is the case, although to be fair if you look at the past data the US's share has remained relatively flat, while it's the Commonwealth that has lost ground to Europe. Those who support the concept of an 'Anglosphere' (a term I think is rather meaningless) would undoubtedly say that most of the Commonwealth share means Australia and Canada and could therefore be added to the US share, which would bring the proportions to about 50:50.
Indeed such a split (I am of course assuming Commonwealth does not allow for any view on India, or Pakistan or many other countries which probably it does) certainly chimes with my experience of the British. There are obvious cultural and economic similarities between the UK and other English-speaking nations, particularly the US. Yet if you read many weblogs you would think the two countries are identical in outlook, and that Britain had nothing in common with other European countries. Clearly that is not true -- as I said on Iain's site there are many facets of British political, economic and social life that are much more similar to those in other countries in Europe than they are with those in the US US. Furthermore such a view (and to be fair it is usually held by Americans who know little of this country and Europe, so we shouldn't be too hard) tends to see the countries of 'Yurp' as a lumpen-block, all identical in their socialist and pacifist outlook, while Britain stands alone. I have said many times, but its worth repeating, that's not how it is. The UK has much more in common with (say) The Netherlands than The Netherlands does with Spain. Germany has more in common with Sweden than either do with Italy. And so on and so on.
posted by Matthew @ 12/03/2002 10:19:00 AM
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