I think the US have been a bit pissed with us getting involved in that Chinese bank and the less Eurocentric we become the less we can pedal for the states in Europe...not that they wouldnt have influence anyway but not sure where the special relationship is heading.. have we dumped America to head off with a new sugar daddy?

Britain's power will always be in its finance and the more influence we have in China the knock on effect would of course be Russia...but America seems to like to make enemies where we spread influence through mutually benefitting friendships..

I don't know why the decline and failed state of Britain needs to be framed within the relationship with the US. As if this is the excuse, which it is not. Any nation that has tolerated the level of child sexual exploitation by it's own political and celebrity elites and then to the child grooming gangs on an industrial scale by it's newly arrived and second generation immigrants is deeply sick, twisted and unfit to be player on the world stage.

All of Europe needs to be looking inwards, nations such as Sweden that great humanitarian super-power that will be a third-world economy as it runs out of money to support the largesse to its asylum seekers, France ever closer to the edge, Spain pre-revolutionary levels of unemployment. And yes, the eyes of Isis forever looking towards the citadel of Rome as they sharpen their swords with envious eyes. The problem is not only Britain, but in all of the continent of Europe, which is at risk of falling to a new dark age.

Britain as a nation needs to enter psychotherapy and sort it's own proverbial out before it can again claim the title of "Great".

The loathing of the self is a dangerous thing, but we must live in hope that come the hour, will come the man.

Of course, being a transplanted Englishman who has made his life abroad, I am likely not best suited to give an in-bedded opinion at ground level.

The terms 'Great Britain' and 'United Kingdom' may well be obsolescent in our lifetimes if the 50% of Scots who voted for the Nationalists get their wish, as they probably will. Once these independence movements reach a certain size and critical mass they only tend to go one way.

Maybe the establishment here are too busy thinking up new names for the country to worry about what's going on abroad.

I wasn't referring to Zakaria's commentary, I meant the Brit perspective that we have declined because of hanging onto the coat tails of the Americans in their Iraq and Afghanistan misadventures. for which we were willing partners of equal guilt. Britain's role is diminished despite Iraq and Afghanistan, the problems would exist anyway.

The testing time for Europe is coming again as we all know, then we shall see whether the Brits have the sangfroid of our forefathers and can step-up and be a defining world power again.

And we nearly had a Syria debacle as you remember, can you imagine what that would have turned out as, on the premise of bombing Assad for the so called moderates? We know war is coming whether we like it or not, it's the fighting location that is being debated.