To most Americans, the tale of Catherine Wieland will have seemed too outrageous to believe.
asserted
tale → seem → Wieland
Claiming she suffered ‘anxiety attacks’ so crippling she couldn’t leave her home or perform basic functions such as washing herself, the 33-year-old from West Sussex was given lavish disability benefits worth about £700 per month.
asserted
old → claim → month
She also received universal credit, while simultaneously exploiting the infamous Motability scheme: Using a taxpayer-subsidised programme for disabled people, in which she paid a small deposit for the use of a brand-new BMW.
asserted
she → receive → BMW
Yet Wieland not only made 76 beauty appointments and visited 60 pubs, clubs and restaurants in the two-and-a-half years she was claiming personal independence payments but happily went abroad, flying to Cancun in Mexico, where she posted pictures of herself zip-lining and surfing.
asserted
herself → make → pictures
Wieland was convicted of fraud in March, given a suspended sentence and ordered to repay £23,662 she stole from the taxpayer.
asserted
she → convict → taxpayer
Her case hardly caused much of a stir in Britain – where outrageous benefits cheating is par for the course.
asserted
cheating → cause → course
But this week, Wieland made it on to the front page of the Wall Street Journal, America’s biggest-selling newspaper, under the brutal but entirely accurate headline: The Welfare State is Crushing Britain.
asserted
State → make → Britain
Donald Trump was never keen on Labour governments even before Keir Starmer failed to back the President’s military misadventures in Iran
Catherine Wieland was convicted of fraud in March, given a suspended sentence and ordered to repay £23,662 she stole from the taxpayer
Catherine claimed she suffered ‘anxiety attacks’ so crippling she couldn’t leave her home or perform basic functions such as washing herself... yet was pictured zip-lining in Mexico
But it’s not just the Journal.
asserted
it → fail → Mexico
Barely a week goes by now without distinguished figures in the US media lifting the lid yet again on the horror show they can see unfolding across the Atlantic.
asserted
they → go → Atlantic
For all the chaos and alleged corruption of the Trump administration, in recent months, commentators, politicians, podcasters and media outlets on both the Left and the Right have kept up a constant chorus arguing that Britain is a country in more or less terminal decline.
asserted
Britain → allege → decline
When I arrived in New York more than 20 years ago, Britain was generally regarded in the US, especially in liberal circles, as a bastion of sanity – both under Labour and Conservative prime ministers – in an increasingly mad world.
asserted
Britain → arrive → world
Suffice it to say, I cannot remember a time when our transatlantic cousins have had such a downer on the Brits.
asserted
cousins → suffice → Brits
Critics bemoan not only the UK’s flagging economy and ever-expanding welfare state but also its hypocrisy over free speech, its feeble and starved Armed Forces and its inability to get to grips with the small boats crisis and the wider issue of mass immigration.
asserted
Critics → bemoan → immigration
Donald Trump was never keen on Labour governments even before Keir Starmer failed to back the President’s military misadventures in Iran.
asserted
Starmer → fail → Iran
Trump acidly described the ex-PM as ‘not Winston Churchill’, adding that the so-called ‘special relationship’ is ‘not what it was’.
asserted
it → describe → Churchill
But in truth, Trump speaks for millions of Americans these days.
asserted
Trump → speak → Americans
In years gone by, Democrat friends would regularly roll their eyes at some latest Maga outrage or other and tell me: Well, at least you don’t have to put up with this sort of madness in the UK.
asserted
you → go → UK
They increasingly know only too well what the Brits are putting up with.
asserted
Brits → know → what
With self-proclaimed socialists such as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the rise in the Democrat Party and threatening to drag it significantly to the Left, the Republicans nowadays like to use Britain as a cautionary tale of what might happen if they take control of the US.
uncertain
they → proclaim → US
Ruinous welfare handouts – anathema to many Americans who believe in self-sufficiency and low taxes – top the list.
asserted
who → believe → list
The Wall Street Journal points out that while the number of working-age British people claiming sickness or disability benefits has now soared to 4.7million – at a faster rate than any Western country – the comparative figure in the US is 10.6million.
asserted
figure → point → US
But America has a population five times bigger than Britain, while its economy is in a far healthier state.
asserted
economy → have → state
Meanwhile, Americans have been poring over the UK’s dismal economic performance for some time.
asserted
Americans → pore → time
In June, the liberal Atlantic magazine ran a long investigation – cruelly subtitled ‘a case study in self-sabotage’ – into how Britain ‘became as poor as Mississippi’.
asserted
Britain → run → Mississippi
Output per person, a crucial measure of economic wellbeing, had slumped to the point that Britain’s was now only just above that of America’s most impoverished state, the Atlantic noted, adding: ‘Who broke Britain?
asserted
Who → slump → Britain
Someone – or something – must have.
asserted
Someone → have → ?
Predictably, Brexit got some of the blame but the article’s American author (whose train out of London, needless to say, broke down) went on to note witheringly that the rapid succession of prime ministers ‘do not seem to be getting more talented over time’.
asserted
succession → get → time
Ultimately, the Atlantic concluded, the British themselves broke Britain.
asserted
British → conclude → Britain
Back in March, many patriotic Americans were appalled at Britain’s underwhelming military response to a drone attack on a UK airbase in Cyprus.
asserted
Americans → appal → Cyprus
Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon took a week to be taken out of dry dock and get to the Mediterranean – only to develop power and propulsion problems on the way.
asserted
Dragon → take → way
‘What happened to Britain’s Royal Navy?’ pondered a headline in the Washington Times.
asserted
headline → happen → Times
Military sources in the US capital later revealed that America had ‘long-standing’ concerns about the UK’s ability to send warships to sea in an emergency.
asserted
America → reveal → emergency
Earlier this month, the sudden decision to withdraw all its heavy bombers from RAF Fairford after the confused response to a suspected Iran-backed terror plot suggested it wasn’t just Britain’s fleet but also its air bases that are worrying our American allies.
uncertain
that → withdraw → allies
Britain’s respect, or lack of it, for free speech – a freedom that Americans take very seriously – was back in the news only last week.
asserted
Americans → take → news
The announcement that the UK’s ‘police watchdog’ had found that comedy writer Graham Linehan may have been unfairly arrested at Heathrow Airport over remarks about trans issues on social media will have stirred memories of an incident that struck many Americans at the time as invidious.
uncertain
that → find → time
Linehan’s original arrest in September last year created shockwaves in the US where many argued that it made a mockery of then Starmer’s blase assurance to his Oval Office hosts a few months earlier that ‘we’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom, and it will last for a very, very long time’.
asserted
it → create → time
He gave this assurance shortly after Trump’s vice-president JD Vance attended the Munich Security Conference and rattled off various cases in the UK that he said proved free speech was ‘in retreat’ there.
asserted
speech → give → retreat
The US State Department subsequently published a report claiming that human rights in Britain have ‘worsened’ over the past year, citing ‘serious restrictions’ on free speech.
asserted
rights → publish → speech
The Linehan arrest rather bore out what the Trump administration had been saying.
asserted
administration → bear → what
A point reiterated by an influential historian and conservative commentator, Michael Barone, made clear days later in a widely-syndicated column headlined: ‘Britain, Land of the Unfree’.
asserted
point → reiterate → Unfree
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
