A well-placed pro-American Tory writes:
I think that the most important thing is to understand the background of anti-Americanism trading as fact over here. There is no significant opposition to the wildest stories put out, and the unspoken context of all the news is “fat thick racist rich Yanks”. Why? In part the lack of a high profile Ambassador. In part the lack of organisations to put the argument across. The Republicans Abroad spokeswoman does a good job, but is only given airtime once in a while and is American, so not taken as seriously as she should be. We need more support for Atlanticism from Brits: we need more direct line by line challenging of BBC stories: we need more general noise from the right in the US and UK to provide context. How we get it I’m not sure, but without it Clarkson can get away with playing for an easy laugh. And that’s all, I think. Don’t think he’s really bad; just a bit jealous (He likes BIG THINGS THAT MAKE NOISE. America has more of those than anyone else).
Again, I can’t emphasise enough the degree over here that stating that a) the Earth travels around the Sun and b) that Bush is a half housetrained gibbon, who spends most of his time on holiday and the rest shooting minorities while chortling manically are equally uncontroversial statements. In fact, given the awful state of education today, the latter is probably less controversial than the former.
THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM. And I’m not sure how we solve it.
I agree. A genuine Atlanticist Tory leader is an important element. With Iraq War opportunist and Europhile Ken Clarke making the running at the moment, there’s no guarantee we’ll get it.