Word: britain
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...patriotism, such as Francisco Franco's National Catholicism in Spain, served to heighten the distrust Europeans felt for religion. After the 1960s and '70s, secularism had become a central part of the West European mind-set, so much so that even devoutly Christian leaders - like Britain's Tony Blair - were extraordinarily cautious about proclaiming their faith in the public square. Meanwhile, regular church attendance in Western Europe continued to plummet. By the late 1990s, only 15% of Europeans said that they attended a place of worship each week. Despite some last-minute lobbying by Poland, Italy and others, the draft...
...most recent plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic was uncovered by British intelligence, Muslim leaders used the renewed focus on their communities to call for further measures to make them feel at home. An open letter to the Prime Minister signed by 38 Muslim groups in Britain and six politicians even demanded that the government "change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion." British Home Secretary John Reid described the letter as a "dreadful misjudgment." But it is not only because of Europe...
...History isn't supposed to repeat itself so quickly, but George W. Bush's tardy response last year to Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast echoed almost exactly the lethargy that enveloped the Royal Family of Britain eight years before, in the days following the car crash that killed Princess Diana. Like Bush in Crawford, the Queen stayed holed up in Balmoral, her country estate in Scotland, while her subjects, shocked by the violent death of the blond goddess whose flaws they cherished as much as her charms, sobbed their hearts out. Strange, isn't it, how the powerful...
...cousins of Mrs. Proposition and Mrs. Conclusion, the shrill suburban housewives from Monty Python's Flying Circus. It's as if the Windsors want to prove that although they're worth billions and practically define the term "idle rich," they share the tatty taste and myopic world-view of Britain's petty bourgeoisie. The grocer and the schoolteacher can look, not up to, but over at Elizabeth and think...
...swept into 10 Downing Street in a landslide a few months before. Incorrigibly cheerful and gently manipulative, he keeps telling the Queen that a condoling word or two might be in order. Only then does she realize with a shock that she was not the most beloved woman in Britain. Blair has to slap the royals awake to recognize the intensity of the nation's grief and Elizabeth's need to display some herself. Blair, who has a mother about the Queen's age, becomes the son Elizabeth never had: the one she listens...