Because while NOBODY I KNOW hates the 'English', 'Scots' or the 'Welsh' (in the context of hating someone because of their place of birth), MOST PEOPLE I KNOW hate the 'British'

Ahhh - So the light begins to dawn upon me. Takes a while to get through this Gnomish skull but it gets there eventualy:-) Is what you are saying that it is not the peoples of a particular land you and your compatriates hate but the people who believe they are 'British' because they relate in some way to the old British Imperial rule? If that is the case why did you not say so in the first place? Oh - sorry - silly me. I guess it was because the discussion was about the average Brit being anti-Irish. Not the average Irishman being anti-Brit. I must have got it wrong somewhere;-)

Anyhow, that aside, if I am right I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. I just think the wording could have been more precise. If you were to say, for instance, that the average British Imperialist is anti-Irish - Agreed. But how many Britons (ie denizens of England, Scotland and Wales) are Imperialists nowadays? None that I know. Perhaps it is more rife in Ireland where Loyalists, such as the mad minister himself, seem to hang on to the last vestiges of the empire like the rabid dogs they are. If you are measuring the whole of Britain (the citizenship, not the idea) by their performance I believe you may need to rethink how you are measuring the 'average Brit'.

If, as I suggested very early on, we had decided what you meant by the term 'average Brit' we could have saved a lot of time and effort. Hope we have cleared it up now. Have we?

Cheers

DtG