There was a slight pause while I picked myself up off the floor. Before America was the major world power, it was France. Obviously as a liberal and an internationalist I don't care who was the major world power before America, it just so happens that it was Great Britain, that's all. She countered my amusing interpretation of history by reminding me of the French empire in North Africa. I went on as the strains of Land of Hope and Glory rose behind me and union flag tattoos popped out all over my skin.
European socialists have a duty to recognise the shameful inheritance of our imperialist history.
But the French had better accept that we've got a bigger imperialist tradition to be ashamed of than they have. The historical baggage that we British carry around with us is of course the real reason that we struggle to accept the increased status of the French in Europe. The tabloids and the Conservative party have attempted to sustain the flattering fantasy that Britain's status in Europe is roughly unchanged since the happy days of the second world war, portrayed so accurately in 'Allo, 'Allo. And what's really underneath all this week's anti-French rhetoric is the nagging resentment that France and Germany are now the dominant partners in Europe. We have clung to an over-inflated view of ourselves which has left us as bit part players in the shaping of the European Union.