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Just Saying
Hong Kong
Yonden Lhatoo

Just Saying | Hell hath no fury like the British being labelled as ‘completely useless’

Yonden Lhatoo highlights some of the feedback – minus the flood of abuse – he received for asking in a previous column if Britain had really become a ‘completely useless country’

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People walk over Westminster Bridge towards the Houses of Parliament in London wrapped in Union flags. Photo: AFP

The old stiff upper lip that the British were once famous for appears to be waning, just like their country’s relevance on the world stage.

I had expected to ruffle some feathers – not stir up a hornets' nest of incandescent Englishmen – with my last column.
They took great exception to my argument which was based on three talking points: a recent BBC panel discussion during which a European participant declared that Britain was a “completely useless country”; Prime Minister Theresa May’s shambolic rallying speech to her party; and Hong Kong’s denial of entry to British human rights activist Benedict Rogers.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May was faulted for a mishap-laden rallying speech to her Conservative Party. Photo: Bloomberg
British Prime Minister Theresa May was faulted for a mishap-laden rallying speech to her Conservative Party. Photo: Bloomberg

You need only look at the number of comments that had to be removed from our website to get an idea of the heated debate among our vociferous readers. I stopped counting the messages and emails filled with expletive-ridden diatribes and personal attacks that I received myself.

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“While we might expect such negative views from someone born in a former British hill station ...” the irate chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society’s Hong Kong chapter wrote in a letter to the editor complaining about my column.
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