It's often said that the British people no longer care enough about being free to have a revolution. Some do, of course, but the naysayers respond that those who care are too few and too cowed.
I thought of this, when I read the back of a book that was lying on my bookshelves waiting to be read. It was David McCullough's "John Adams", the biography of the second American president which formed the basis of the recent TV series (if you missed it, it was brilliant). Here's the quote:
There was no American nation, no army at the start, no sweeping popular support for rebellion, nor much promise of success. No rebelling people had ever broken free from the grip of colonial empire, and those we call patriots were also celarly traitors to the King.
Maybe we're not so badly positioned after all.