I am very proud to be British. As you're reading this on ConservativeHome, I rather suspect that that's something I share with you. My frequent criticisms of what's happening here have sometimes drawn sharp rebuke from friends and acquaintances who think that I'm running down our country. Not so. Pointing out what one believes to be governmental and societal mistakes isn't the same as bashing the country that brought one up.
And yet. And yet. A more basic point and problem occupies me now - something that government and culture just can't fix. When I returned from Australia just in time for Christmas with my family, I cannot pretend that my heart filled with joy at the sight of the skies above Heathrow. My point is simply this. Our long, long, miserable grey winter is so massively depressing, isn't it? Heathrow - an airport designed to see 45 million passengers a year pass through, but instead creaking under the strain of 70 million - could be the best airport in the world, rather than an armpit, and it would still suffer from the psychological blow inflicted by this burdensome gloom.
What effect do you think that our weather has had - and has now - on our national life? Do you think that the sky-high levels of emigration we're seeing might simply be significantly to do with the ease with which one can relocate to a place that doesn't have these unbelievably depressing grey months?
[And of course, London had a pretty good Indian Summer this year, too - in many years, it's even worse...]
