Flying Sand | Dying in a pit of its own making, the West’s problems far outweigh ours in Hong Kong
Niall Fraser, fresh from a sojourn traversing the length of Britain, predicts the country’s constitutional monarchy will collapse before Hong Kong ceases to be a special administrative region, as the US-led West slowly sinks beneath the waves it used to rule
First of all, it is good to be back in Hong Kong and journalistic circulation after an enforced and extended trip to Britain on family business. It is of course entirely possible – in fact probable – that only I and my long-suffering editor even noticed I was gone and feel any sense of relief at my return.
Thankfully, I still have a column, although this could be the last as I struggle with the combined effects of jet lag and several weeks in which the best shut-eye I had almost killed me as I nodded off behind the wheel of the hire car in which I covered more than 2,500 miles (4,023km) of United Kingdom roads between London and Inverness and all points in between.
The words “United Kingdom” I use advisedly because the wet and windswept collection of islands floating off the northwest coast of continental Europe is anything but united. As the pointless, parasitic House of Windsor clings on to the fantasy of empire, I give the royal family at most 15 years before they cash in their chips, get the butler to pack their bags and sail off into the night, much like Hong Kong’s last colonial overlord, Chris Patten, did with the ever-more cartoonish heir to Britain’s throne, Prince Charles, when they boarded the Royal Yacht Britannia at midnight on July 1, 1997.
Mark my words – with a promise that you can throw them back at me and more when I am proved wrong – but I predict Britain will cease to be a constitutional monarchy before the 50 years of special administrative grace Hong Kong and Macau have is up. I have no idea what political format it will become, but crowns, wigs and curious trousers have definitely had their day.
China may crow as US shuts down, but death of the West is greatly exaggerated
If it isn’t already, the British royal family is at best a long-running, expensive comedy sitcom, and at worst a cankerous shower of dangerously rich and self-serving never-have-beens – a deliberate distraction from the realisation that the rot set in long before all the Brexit ballyhoo.
