No. There is also such a thing as different election systems. (To boot, I think the elites 50 years ago very rather different from those 25 years ago.)
Are you saying there isn't a deeply atlanticist, anti-european current pervading english society which makes it impossible for any english government to actually commit england to Europe?
I think there is such a current, it may even be stronger than everywhere else (maybe with the exception of Italy and Germany), but I do not think that it makes such a commitment impossible. At least not via the election (or referendum) booth.
so many accidents with their slower trains
Uhm... slower trains, so many accidents, where did you take that? At any rate, the side French trains drive on is the British side, they took railways from them. How much more civilised right-driving trains are is shown by the fact that France has not converted right-driving lines in the Alsace back to left-driving in 80 years :-) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
They could've just bought TGVs you know.
I wholly agree with you on political systems and the English have the same hidebound first past the post political tradition which hobbles the Americans too. This being said, at what point does a nation need take responsibility for an outdated and undemocratic political system?
Is this true about Alsace? Even the TGV Est line? Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
Yes, you are! You are linking to one single accident on a conventional line. It's not like the TGV would not be prone to accidents in the same low-speed situation :-) Also, Siemens was only one consortia member for that train, but made the trains currently commissioned for the highest speed, Spain's S-103, completely, while the TGV Est sees parallel service of German ICE-3 and French TGV POS (<-acronym in a civilised right-driving language, Paris-Ostfrankreich-Süddeutschland!) at the same top speed :-)
Is this true about Alsace? Even the TGV Est line?
Yes, it is true. The TGV Est line hasn't reached Alsace proper yet, presently the end of the line 'solves' the change-over (I can testify from travelling both via Strasbourg and via Saarbrücken). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
