To see ourselves as others see us!

The article on the General Election and our political system in general by Alan Posener of Die Welt in today's Observer should be compulsory reading for all those doom mongers and nay sayers, as well of all those little Englanders (and Scots, Welsh and Irish too), who simply want to pull up the drawbridge and ignore what's going on elsewhere in the world.

Having studied and worked in what was then West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s at a time of unprecedented boom, it's clear that things haven't changed that much in the new unified version. To give just one example, the response from my neighbours to my washing my car on a Sunday that still rings in my ears was the leitmotif of my stay there ; "Das duerfen Sie nicht!" (Trans. "You're not supposed to do that").

Living in Canada and West Germany as I and my wife did in the first half of the 1970s and finally returning home after the Barber Boom, the 'three day week", union militancy and 25% inflation had rendered our country almost a basket case, only to be 'saved' by North Sea oil, makes you look at things from an entirely difference perspective.

Perhaps it does take someone with an insider knowledge of two different societies, like Mr Posener, to deliver a few home truths. I could have said the same thing. But, is anyone on these islands really listening? Or will it be, as Baseball great, Yogi Berra (not George Bush, Alan) famously said, déjà vu all over again?