While American cinema has the brio, even the arrogance, to dare speculate on the human condition, British writers have played safe, sticking with what are meant to be charming, quirky but ultimately small stories. They produce a meditation on the insanity of suburban living like American Beauty. We get an inanity like Mad Cows. We get another mockney gangster flick. Perhaps we have begun to see ourselves as a small country, fit only for telling small stories.
Football is a case in point.
Tony Banks had been sports minister for about a fortnight when he dared suggest in 1997 that the UK might do better if it competed as one team, rather than four. As Britain they would win it. He was laughed off the back pages, but Banks had a point. Thinking of ourselves exclusively as Scots or Welsh or English is bound to reduce the strength we would have if we acted together. Football may be the last place that can happen.