[Closed] Britain - Great or not?

emergency services.
hurt yourself in some other parts of the world, and you will see why britain is great.

i hate this 'hive mind' term. it's like 'steed'.

Anyway. agree with the big boy, the NHS/'free' healthcare.

I tend not to agree we are 'Great' though, i would rather think we are being shown our place in the world, we were once perhaps Great but now we are as normal as other countries.

To consider ourselves superior is arrogant.

This does not apply to Scots however as we are simply Awesome!

aye, the NHS

some socialist elements still exist - i.e. a belief in supporting the common man rather than treading on them to succeed

freedom of speech (yes - but compared to a lot of other countries)

tea 🙂

TEA!

+1 for Tea

Only place you can get decent Tea (that I've found)...

We're pretty good at Music, Finance (ok a recent blip with a few), technology, bio-technology, bespoke ship building, engineering, architecture, fashion, food, annoying celebs (Simon Cowell etc) and not bad at some niche sports (DH biking) . 🙂

great at providing free health care!

great at sending troops to Iraq and Afgahnistan. USA is better at it, though.

great sense of humour/comedy.

other nations, especially germany, think we're cool (and based on the outfit your average hausfrau, jugend or cluberin wears you'd be right).

great at making nature programmes (Trails of Life, Life on Earth, etc).

We gave the world the English language and for that we are truly great 🙂

You don't realise what's good about britain til you go elsewhere.

People actually mostly give a crap about other people here, when it comes down to it. Which is why we queue, and say 'excuse me' and all. And why we have good emergency services and even volunteer ones (ie mountain rescue). It's also less racist than most places, and more tolerant of alternative lifestyles ie gay/trannie etc.

Also, watch TV or listen to music in the rest of the world. Nuff said. Apart from the anglophone world, it's mostly utter dreck.

We are also apparently quite good at high tech industries...

Why not take a trip to London and really have a look at who's there and what they're doing. Full of folk from all over the world come there to work in some interesting job or do their art, cook their food and so on.

Read a British newspaper and compare it to other countries.. listen to a radio phone-in... watch the news *carefully*...

Beer, real beer.
Food, I mean I like food the world over, but its all available here. Most other countries look after their own really.
We invented (nearly) everything.
English language.
NHS, as above^^
Sport - Cycling, Rowing
Wind power Generation
TV
Music

forgot to say - we have Radio 4.

Maybe we are great after all!

Where else in the world can you get a decent cooked breakfast (OK not including the USA)

Our armed forces are the best trained in the world, second to none.

yeah, i'll add

comedy

music

news

armed forces

to my list 🙂

Tea
Cheese
Pies
The Bacon Buttie
Curry
Flag
Socks
Shirts
Kilts
Footie
Rugby
Saddle bags
Politeness
Nutters
A sense of fair play
Justice....ish
Pomp and Circumstance
Tradition
Acceptance
...and lately, the use of the word 'innit', as in my mum wants me to marry this guy, but I've never even seen him, and my cousin says he has a Ferrari, innit? Which, to a Northen lad, sounds like poetry but in a slightly foreign way...

Britain is really great at being British, and being British as a 'thing' has expanded beyond anyones dream. The problem comes when people try to define it, to pin it down, to make it fit; that's not what being British is, it's the ability to be yourself, where ever you are, it's a feeling, it's a sense, it's what makes us who we are.....

The big test of the Great in GB will be if we manage to persuade the Argentinians to completely withdraw their claims to the Falklands for another 100 years.

We can't be Great if we don't have a proper Navy to back it up.

National parks, volunteer mountain rescue team and RNLI, A very good and respected military, a (mostly) unarmed Police force, Ace music, diverse culture, a very good university system (much as I hate to admit it Oxbridge is world renowned), the best architects, the best formula one teams, tea, David Attenbrough, Radio4 etc. etc.

Oh, and we have Stephen Fry too 🙂

Errr.... just testing... we do all realise that the 'Great' in 'Great Britain' simply means 'large' (as in, we're bigger than Brittany), and not great as in 'really good'?

What is Britain good for? Well we probably make more of a cultural contribution than you could expect for a country our size (e.g., music etc.).

a small thing but i read that an astonishing amount of high-end nascar and indy car parts are maniufactured by specialists in the uk and shipped over to the states. Not that I would be mentioning that too loudly in the stands at some oval in the midwest!

I also love the beeb and the music.

Oh, british people invented looooads of sports as well, non?

Great(er) Britain because it includes all the islands, apart from Ireland. Britain is just the main island.

Great of course in Great Britain is in the sense of big or large not best is it not?

Still -

NHS - we do more for less than anywhere comparable

Music - still a huge worldwide influence

Beer - the best in the world and huge regional variety

NHS - we do more for less than anywhere comparable

I wonder why no other country copied the NHS model then?

No profit in it and differing traditions. For example Germany had a much larger and healthier voluntary / religious hospital set up so no need to absorb them into a monolithic concern. Its not perfect by any means but we provide better healthcare per £ spent than any comparable country and we spend less on administration than any comparable country

'we' are still a fine example of a society with free speech, diversity and originality where individuality is largely respected and valued.......

how the hell did i forget beer!

[i]how the hell did i forget beer! [/i]

Too sh*tfaced on cider, I expect.

Darts being a sport.

The NHS
The RNLI
RDA
RAF
British Army
Royal Navy
Coastguard
Fire Brigade
The Police
Hedges
Pubs
Banter
Beef
Brewing
Cheese
Beaches
Literature
Theatre
Art
Oh man I could go on all night.

Great? Hell yes!

Orange bikes
Hope components
Well it is an MTB forum

Great Britain, as others have pointed out has its meaning dervied in size. We became Great Britain after the Acts of Union with Scotland.

Britain then became great through its navy. It facilitated existing trade routes, and then became a mean through which Britain could impose its own trading terms. Not long after follo0wed gunboat diplomacy, and then an empire.

This conventional view is then expanded by Britain's very self interested approach to national security. Having conquered internally and created the construct of Great Britain (OK, Ireland has remained a thorn in the side), the key then was to protect the borders, which as an island are significfant (c.15% of Europe's coastline). So, it has been Britain's policy to ensure that whichever mainland European nation develops too much power (mainly France, and also Germany now and again and more recently). With the construct of the EU (and its previous incarnations) it has been key to find our place in it in order to maintain this approach.

Having built the largest empire in modern times, it was, as is the way with all empires (go back and look at the Chinese empires onwards), it finally came to an end with the creation of the Radcliffe Line and with it ****stan. Since August 1947, Britain has no longer been "great" in the sense of its primacy as a self interested expansionist capitalist nation state (whilst retaining the oddity of stateless nations within), and so has struggled with its inevitable decline.

This decline - and don't think for a minute this is a nation in any other state - has been ameliorated by certain key peaks - the establishment of the welfare state, culture imperialism (though we are deluded if we think that competes in any way with the USA during the C20th), and an enlightened (though, of course, entirely financially driven - we needed a workforce) attitude to inward economic migration has, in combination with the historic desire to make as much cash as possible, meant that we attract more apparent international attention than a nationof 60 million inhabitants might otherwise expect.

The cultural aspect is probably the most significant since the middle of the C20th, and Britain's influence was most of all through its demand that so much of its recent empire speak English. The stroke of luck was the USA's own influence - pop music and film lead here, the former containing our own contribution - has cemented that. Much of that is because we have a very relaxed attitude to the development of the language, allowing it to take on all it needs from all others (e.g. bungalow, pyjamas, cul-de-sac, graphic) without being too fussy like french.

Our time has passed, and it pains us to watch the rise of China and India, but we have to accept that our greatness lies not in what we continue to do on a macro level now (I agree about individual things), but what we did for 500 years up to 1947.

The bbc simply rocks and is a corner stone of our cultural life and is a genuine voice in the world with the world service. Amnesty International was started in Briton. We are at forefront of global research in to climate change. We own 10% of the space engineering market, with a very limited investment compared to other countries. We are quite big in medicinal research. We have some of the best universities in the world.

We are always open to adapting and redeveloping. I think we are going through some massive changes at the moment but I really think the creative energy of this country will see us progressing as we always have.

I think there is a hell of alot left in us yet!

We're all from Britain and therefor Britain is great!

FACT!

We're still a fairly major hub for the art world. Tate Modern is arguably the most successful art museum in the world

Most of the the major players behind the scenes in Hollywood, on the technical / craft side are british, infact most of them started out working on thunderbirds. And of course all of the baddies are british too.

We're also a big deal in motor racing in terms of the design and manufacture, I was reading somewhere that most of the most cars racing in things like the Indy Car series in the states are british built (regardless of who's badge is on them), as are almost all of the engines. Subaru's rally cars are/were british too.

We have the kind of culture that creates very successful architects, but not the kind of culture that patronises them which is why our UK architects keep winning plaudits for buildings they built in Germany 🙂

The BBC has set the bar in broadcasting and no other broadcasters anywhere can come close, and never have and probably never will.

The NHS, and particularly the NHS [i]right now[/i] is phenomenal. Absolutely sparklingly bullseye fricking brilliant. Myself and pretty much everyone close to me have had to patronise our local hospitals in the last 12 months, and the conclusion we all share is that hospitals are better beyond recognition than the last time any of us needed treatment. If you've not been sick or injured in the last 10 years I'd recommend you contract the plague or chuck yourself down a flight of stairs so that you can go check out your local hospital. Right now they are ace, ripe for being run back into the ground again from June no doubt.

If your lad can get his hands on a copy the Economic and Social Research Council publish a magazine called 'Britain in 2010' (or Britain in 2009 if you pick up last years copy), its a fascinating publication in that it takes the issues that are kicked around in politics or the press (or the pub) - health, crime, sustainability, immigration and so on and presents them without political or populist baggage (or Jeremy Vine). In doing so it reveals alot of the perception gaps we have, which contribute to your sense of 'other places seeming to do it better'.

we punch well above our weight in almost every field, whats not great about that 😯

I was reading somewhere that most of the most cars racing in things like the Indy Car series in the states are british built

In fact I was reading that in julianwilson's post 😛

well when you put it like all of that, I suppose it's not a bad place.

weather could be better though* 😉

* something else we're great at, discussing the weather

only realised after leaving how Great Britain is, that being said we are not coming back as there are too many people and too many of them are not very nice people

it saddens me to say that also

Having built the largest empire in modern times

The biggest ever, no?

Omitn - you seem to connect 'great' with military or political power. This isn't necessarily the case.. Plus, the OP asked what made Britain great not whether or not it actually IS great. That is to say, what's great about it?

Geopolitical influence is definitely in decline but that's not necessarily a problem. I think we can hold our head reasonably high (along with some other countries) on how we treat our citizens, and the balance we strike between universal welfare and individual enterprise. It's a very very long way indeed from perfect, tragically so, but it's still better than a great many powerful countries.

Anyone who considers China great is ignoring human rights, which is a big deal.

Unfortunately the last decade we have lost our claim to moral leadership which is a pity. Its interesting mind you that Britain ever had a reputation for this considering the brutality of much of the Empire. I suppose we did get out of the Empire reasonably easily without too much bloodshed and have remained on good terms with much of the former empire.

Its one reason why folk seeking asylum come here - the reputation for fair play. Shame they don't get it when they come here - being treated worse here than almost anywhere else/

Omitn - you seem to connect 'great' with military or political power.

Sorry, my post was somewhat of a ramble. I meant that, beyond the semantic definition of "great" in Great Britain, our greatness was built on a fairly straightforward political attitude, itself based on military might.

But, what I was then trying to say was that, the empire having ceased, we have declined as a nation in that sense, but have had influence in other ways.

I do agree that the general principle of fairness that we display through being one of the oldest democracies (and the oldest parliamentary democracy) is something that remains attractive. Though, I do not think that we have a sole streak of fairness - we are a pretty ambitious bunch, and are happy to drop principles when it comes to making a few quid (hence the massive economic migration of the mid and late 20th Century).

China, I agree on in the context of its internally socio-political construct, but its aggressive international economic stance will create in it more power than the USA, with its inward looking puritanism at its heart, ever could in its heyday during the C20th.

for me, though, the next "great" country will be India. And, it will be in part a reflection on Briain's own greatness that we will have had such a defining influence on such an extraordinary nation state.

Try visiting other countries, there aren't many you'd want to live in as an 'average' person...

TJ we've discussed this before. As empires go, the British along with the Roman was [i]relatively[/i] benign in many cases and was often based on trade and altruistic (but often misguided) ideas, rather than simple hunger for power as some were.

I do disagree though about asylum seekers being treated worse here than anyone else. We tend not to for example round them up and shoot them or chop their limbs off.

I do agree that the general principle of fairness that we display through being one of the oldest democracies (and the oldest parliamentary democracy) is something that remains attractive.

That apparently goes back to Anglo Saxon days.. interesting to see how such ancient political ideas become part of an enduring national socio-political culture.

Molgrips - I was thinking of our immediate neighbours.

I do agree that the general principle of fairness that we display through being one of the oldest democracies (and the oldest parliamentary democracy) is something that remains attractive.

Hard to argue a case to be the mother of all democracies when we still refuse to offer a fair democratic voting system to our own subjects and hard to argue a case to be the champions of fair play when in the lifetime of many we still presided over an oppressive, brutally administered empire. Poor track record, poor current form.

british manufacturing (bear with me) is and always has been (since the industrial revolution) the best in the world.

100 years ago this wass mass production, mass production is now 'old hat', we specialise in high end, low volume production.

the uk builds most (is it all?) of the formula one engines, most of the wrc engines. and the last three land speed records (and it's been us and the US sharing it since 1920s)

Trailmonkey.. empire was a very long and complex period of history with many factors and threads in different areas. I don't think oppressive and brutal sums it up.

As for fair voting - there's arguments for and against PR. The 'mother' part is about historical development, not current supremacy.

how about being the only "major" western European nation that didn't have a fascist government at some point in the 20th century and the only major European country that didn't ever succumb to totalitarianism of any hue in the 20th century?

We became Great Britain after the Acts of Union with Scotland.

Actually we became Great Britain after the Acts of Union with England 🙂

One thing I think is "great" about Britain is the variation in the countryside itself within a very compact area. Sure there are loads of places that do "bigger" better than us, but not many where you can get find so many differnt geologies (and therefore types of riding) in such a small space.

I know I *hate* the drive down to the Alps because of the never ending dullness of most French countyrside...

Oh, and as well as beer - there's some damn fine cheese, roast dinners, and stodgy puddings. Oh, and custard! 😛

I don't think we are great country at all, in any sense of the word. We have a lamentable attitude to our environment, to sustainability, and to land access and ownership.

Once upon a time more than half of Scotland was covered in forest. By the 1660's 90% of it had gone, leaving just 5% covered with native forest. It is now 1% of Scotland.

Brazil has one of the worst patterns of land ownership in Latin America, with 1% of people owning 45% of the land. But in Scotland in 2000, 1000 owners controlled nearly two thirds of the private land. These owners represent one-fiftieth of 1% of Scotland's population, many of them not even living in Scotland.

We have consistently pushed forward the idea of endless growth, and still equate GDP with quality of life.

We aren't even secular, we still have Lords FFS!

There [i]are[/i] some good things about Britain, no doubt. But we have to quell our collective ego, arrogance and violence for Britain to be in any way 'great'.

I don't think oppressive and brutal sums it up.

Molgrips. certainly not if you're looking from inside of the British discourse. Rather different if you are an indigenous Australian/ American etc.
Fair comment about the historical reach of our democracy. Pity it hasn't moved forward much.

Clearly, trailmonkey, I would not only be looking at it from a British point of view. The question of how brutal or oppressive the empire was is ONLY valid from a native point of view, obviously.

Point still stands tho. It was [i]relatively[/i] benign.

We have a lamentable attitude to our environment, to sustainability, and to land access and ownership.

No worse than most, and tbh better than most. Every developed country with similar population pressures and economy has the exact same issue.

The whole of Europe was covered in forest at one point. Most of lowland Britain was felled in the Iron Age.

We aren't even secular, we still have Lords FFS!

We so are secular. Come off it. You may be alluding to some technical aspect of the definition of the peerage system but practically we are secular.

But we have to quell our collective ego, arrogance and violence for Britain to be in any way 'great'.

Whilst that may be a fair observation of a certain section of the population, since when does that section represent the nation as a whole? God help ANY country if its international standing is judged by the worst of its citizens...

I love the way that if i see a friend for the first time in ages, rather than kissing him or hugging him like other nationalities would, i'll most likely call him a wa***r and take the mickey out of his lack of hair or expanding waistline. ..or does that just happen around here?

We're proper hard... and are still sending our young men overseas to whoop arse .....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Bleeding football hooligans!!

I don't know how "great" the rest of Britain is, but Scotland is ****in' magic, and I think the whole country should be renamed as "**** magic Scotland And Some Other Bits"
And that's because it's **** magic here, partly because we didn't invent the Daily Mail.

..apart from Aberdeen, Ardrossan and Cumberbauld. We should export those.

Frank Coopers Thick Cut Oxford Marmelade is what makes Britain great!

Fit's wrang wi Aeberdeen?

Britain can't be great as long as we're associated with those buckfast drinking skirt wearing nancies up north over the wall. 😀

Free healthcare (flawed, but better than everywhere else in the world)
Education (why else do people from all over the world want to study here?)
Clean drinking water
Proper sanitation systems
Food (nowhere else does decent fish, chips & mushy peas)
Public transport (try using buses and trains in America - nightmare!)

Its one reason why folk seeking asylum come here - the reputation for fair play. Shame they don't get it when they come here - being treated worse here than almost anywhere else/

twaddle - they would stay in Europe if that were the case - the main problem is letting so many of them in to begin with.

As per Rusty Trowel - p*ss taking. It really defines Britishness for me (among other things obviously).

[i]NHS - we do more for less than anywhere comparable[/i]

My mother-in-law fell over and broke her hip here in France and was operated on within four hours. Job well done, excellent physio. Cost - free.

She fell over two years later in the Midlands and broke the other hip. After five days of suffering in a hospital bed I decided she was being left to die (younger patients were being operated on). I phoned with the hospital and read out the outline of an article I had written for the Daily Mail comparaing the treatment in France and England and told them I would be ringing the hotline if she were not operated on by the end of the day. She was then operated on within two hours and the insults of the hospital staff were music to our ears. No free physio.

There's a train of thought that goes along the lines of "British people are just morally better, more deserving, more naturally honest and decent than those ghastly, dirty, corrupt foreigners".
Crap of course, but the sentiment is surprisingly widespread.
The reason Britain has always been a stable, relatively honest country is down to an accident of geography; we live on an island with a benign climate and very fertile soils (In fact the grain yield during the Iron age wasn't much bettered until intensive techniques of the 1950s)

This is the reason that allowed Britain to become 'great', by always being able to produce an excess of food, it allowed the earlier diversification of labour, and more importantly allowed the building of armed forces, leading to the ability to venture abroad and steal the resources of others.
And there's the thing, The British Empire, that many are still nostalgic for, was simply the same resource grab as EVERY other nasty little empire.
The fact that 'we' dont think of it as such is largely because the same diversification of modern roles gave rise to the publishing industy, which produced the accounts on which modern views our founded.
'He that controls the history books' and all that.

The one thing that is good about Britain, is the fact that The Empire IS gone.

My opinion, after over 15 years as an ex-pat: Aside from beer and the international cuisine available (at least in London) it's hard to think of anything that really sets GB apart from anywhere else in the first world.

Take mike's list, for example:

Free healthcare (flawed, but better than everywhere else in the world)
Education (why else do people from all over the world want to study here?)
Clean drinking water
Proper sanitation systems
Food (nowhere else does decent fish, chips & mushy peas)
Public transport (try using buses and trains in America - nightmare!)

You can get all that in Spain. Some bits are a little better, some a little worse. On average, I'd say it was fairly similar.

Oh, and JonEdwards: you can get custard in Spain. Just call it "natillas".

Chips 🙂

[img] [/img]

Blokes like him

[img] [/img]

Picking up the torch (a big LOX burning torch) that the UK aerospace industry dropped in the 60's.

See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article5167164.ece and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8535938.stm for more.

I believe the "Great" in Great Britain comes from the fact it is the biggest, in other words "greatest" of the islands of the British Isles. It's to do with physical size rather than anything else.

As regards the Empire though, it was the greatest emprire the world has ever seen and although it wasn't perfect, it was on the whole a good thing for all concerned, despite the trendy PC modern habit of vilifying it.

BigButSlimmerBloke...........that bit about renaming the country is both the worst and the best post on here tonight. It's sent me to bed laughing! Cheers.

As Kipling said 'what do those of England know who only England know'.

As someone who has spent far too much time working abroad I realise now that, without doubt, the best city in Europe is London!

In 2 words it's just the 'cultural diversity' of London that makes it so good. And the beer.

Currently commuting to Lisbon, Portugal. Nice enough, but nothing there that isn't Portuguese. Popped into the local supermarket looking for a beer. Nothing but Portugeuse shit. Tesco's has got beer from every where. That's what makes London the city it is.