Keith, I don't think I'm at risk in this community of being labelled pro-American, but I think I can safely question the tone of your post alleging American cynicism re those WW1 destoyers. Someone else cleared up the facts, but what perplexes me is an assumption often encountered here in Britain that America was bound to come to our aid.

There's nothing wrong with arguing that America should have got in sooner, but I don't see that Britain had any entitlement to support. It was Britain that got itself into the scrap, it was Britain that chose to delay going in until Germany had got itself well and truly into fighting trim, and it was Britain that did next to nothing to prepare itself for the conflict.

As for Dave, I despair. Having tied himself in knots on the race thing, he keeps trying to turn it back on Cook's stupidity, as though slagging a politician will somehow make the peculiar line he is taking seem OK. The trouble is, that there was not a word of stupidity in anything Cook said. He did not say we British don't exist, so he is not in any sort of conflict with the census form, nor in conflict with anyone here, except Dave. He just said we are a collection of races, which we patently are. As far as I have seen, his speech seems to have been generally well received.