Britain is just a "middling power" with a prime minister to match, says US journalist.

Ryan Heath, political editor of the American newspaper Politico, has written a scathing and belittling and scornful article about the United Kingdom, its current status in the world, Theresa May's shrinking leadership and the delusion we Brits apparently all have which is that we are citizens of a still great top-scale nation. He finds the UK and Brexit boring and wonders why we just don't accept we're a piddly little country with no influence and no right to stand up for ourselves against the big boys on the planet, the US and European Union being two of them. Ha!! American journalists love doing to this to good old England. It's a kind of sport. If there are a dozen knife crimes in London, the US journos say the capital is filled with knife-wielding maniacs and it's not safe to walk the streets. If there is a misty day, they say London is hit by smog (not since the early 50s actually). Brexit has given American journalists and columnists a treasure trove of available cliches and bold but unfair judgements. Ryan Heath, whom I don't know from Adam, has managed to put together every single damning cliche he could think of and rather pompously thrown us into the dustbin of history where, apparently we belong. Well Rule Britannia I say. I know we're not the British Empire any more. In fact Mr Heath, every Briton living in this island knows we no longer have an empire and none of us want it back. So you can forget that cliche. British Empire is for Hollywood and Netflix. We don't care about the empire days. As for the other cliche that, lacking an empire and a meaning to exist we adopted the European Union, that is such a silly argument. We opted for the EU because, rightly in my view, we felt that Europe for us was the way forward, the only intelligent way forward and we have been a mostly enthusiastic member since the 1970s. Then after an historically suicidal and cowardly decision by David Cameron the good British people decided by a small majority that they wanted to leave the EU because the government asked them whether they wanted to stay in or get the hell out. Just under 52 per cent decided after eating fried eggs for breakfast and checking on the latest football results that, what-the-hell, they might as well as leave and stick two fingers up to that toffy-nosed git running the EU in Brussels (sorry Mr Juncker). It's as simple as that. Ok, there were issues too, like immigration and stupid EU laws and regulations and waste waste waste. But basically decisions by individual votes were taken without a helluva thought and here we are today! But that doesn't make us pathetic little whingers as Mr Heath would like to think, no longer deserving a place at the top table or any table come to that. We haven't been a great power for decades, just a middle-ranking power though sometimes, as they say, punching above our weight but still effective in many ways. Brexit and Theresa May are the big headlines across the United States today, as they are in the UK. So, small we may be, as Mr Heath kindly puts it, but everyone wants to know about our great political drama. Theresa May is no Maggie Thatcher but she is fighting for survival - of this country and herself and her government. That's a properly worthy cause and should not be belittled by an ignorant cliche-ridden political journalist across the water. By the way, we also have a monarchy and a magnificent Queen. Don't make me start on your current leader Mr Heath!