Americanisation or globalisation? David Ellwood argues that the attempts of British politicians to copy an American `role model' are likely to fail. (Cross Current).(Column)

WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE years the United Kingdom will almost certainly be obliged to decide whether or not to abandon the pound sterling and embrace the Euro. The closer this milestone approaches, the more intense becomes the debate on the meaning of Britain's experience in the twentieth century, the factor more than any other which is likely to decide her fate in the twenty-first.

In February 2001, Timothy Garton Ash asked `Is Britain European?' He argued that Britain had long since abandoned the national perspective of a self-satisfied little island at the heart of a great ...

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