English catwalk and lingerie model Abbey Clancy, fiancée of English striker Peter Crouch (Spurs), poses in bodypaint for the 2010 SI Swimsuit Issue. Sports Illustrated.

TORONTO. TUESDAY 6 JULY 2010. 4:00 PM ET. If you have any feeling at all for the way Old Ontariario used to be, even just back in the dark ages of the 1950s, say, you may have found it difficult to resist some nostalgia over Queen Elizabeth II’s farewell perambulation around Queen’s Park in this city, earlier today.

At the same time, Governor General Michaelle Jean’s husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, is no doubt onto something when he “tells France’s L’Express that what Quebecers understand as ‘British Canada’ is … fraying.” My own father, who passed away as long as a decade ago, liked to make a similar point. His father came to Canada from South London in the United Kingdom in his early 20s, in the early 20th century. My grandfather thought Canada should become “more like England.” My father thought Canada should become more like Canada.

As M. Lafond has aptly observed, times finally are changing in the early 21st century. Yet even now there is something in the water still being consumed in some regions of the anglophone Canadian mind which quietly whispers that the high road to progress is still to at least try to become more like the United Kingdom. (And as the cp24 TV footage from Queen’s Park today showed, even well-groomed older ladies of ultimate African descent, originally from the former British West Indies, can share this sentiment.)

Yet, while the United Kingdom without doubt remains an intriguing place, for many different people in many different parts of the world, two recent controversial clusters of political and economic events suggest that present-day scepticism about the higher culture and deeper wisdom of the British experience may not be entirely misplaced. Consider, first, a recent editorial in the Toronto Globe and Mail: “Britain’s budget is an example for the G20, and Canada … It is tackling the deficit challenge, an undertaking all the more remarkable because the country is led by a coalition government of two parties with strikingly different ideologies.”

Model Danielle Lloyd and fiancé, English midfielder Jamie O'Hara (Portsmouth), attend the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Sports Illustrated.

It isn’t just that the Toronto Star ran a contradictory editorial, at about the same time: “New economic clouds … The latest economic signals from the United States are disturbing; they ought to give our political leaders reason to pause before embarking on draconian austerity programs.” (Or that Paul Krugman has been offering similar advice in the New York Times: for the latest installment see “Punishing the Jobless,” on July 4. For balance – in the incredible Canadian tradition of “conscription if necessary but not necessarily conscription” – it probably should also be noted that David Brooks in the same paper has been urging still further second thoughts, closer to the views of the Globe and Mail. See, eg: “A Little Economic Realism,” on July 5.)

On July 5 as well Bryan Gould in The Guardian in the UK itself was worrying aloud that: “The coalition is lacking a Lib Dem voice … This assault on economic common sense has proved Nick Clegg is ill-equipped to stand up to the George Osbornes of the world [Mr. Osborne is the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer or finance minister in the current Liberal-Conservative coalition government in the UK] … How else to explain the extraordinary spectacle of a supposedly left-of-centre party and its leader tamely endorsing a budget strategy that is positively perverse and that threatens a re-run of the global recession that similar neoliberal doctrine produced less than two years ago?”

* * * *

Model Alex Curran, wife of English midfielder Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), attends the Launch Party for Hilton Liverpool in England. Sports Illustrated.

Some might answer Bryan Gould by urging that Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg has compromised on his economic policy views, in order to advance a bold political reform agenda that his new Conservative colleagues like even less than he likes their economic policy views. Yet Hélène Mulholland in The Guardian has just reported on various flies in this ointment too:

“Constituencies axed as part of Westminster shakeup … Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, confirms referendum on electoral reform but faces criticism over dissolution change … the government faced accusations of committing a U-turn after Clegg announced that the government has increased the majority needed to force a dissolution of parliament to two-thirds … But the deputy prime minister [ie Clegg] said a vote of no confidence in the government would still require only a simple majority. If, after a vote of no confidence, a government cannot be formed for 14 days, parliament will be dissolved and a general election held … Clegg said the two-thirds majority needed to dissolve parliament would make it impossible for any government to ‘force a dissolution for its own purposes’ … [Labour Party front bencher Jack] Straw told Clegg … [that the] two-thirds vote was completely superfluous.”

Hmmmm … Just on the face of things, it does seem that Mr. Straw has a point. There also seems some prospect that a winning (or even any?) referendum on electoral reform (ie “proportional representation”) – as early as May 5, 2011 perhaps? – “has the potential to disrupt the coalition since David Cameron and almost the entire Conservative party oppose voting reform.”

O well … The good news, apparently, is that: “The most spoiled, pampered and over-hyped group of soccer players at the World Cup are close to getting their wish … Not content with letting down a nation with a series of pitiful performances in South Africa, it now appears that players on the England team will now get greater access to their infamous WAGs (wives and girlfriends) for future tournaments … Head coach Fabio Capello attempted to ban the WAGs from this World Cup, describing them as a ‘virus’ following their big-spending, hard-partying ways during the 2006 World Cup … Now, according to a report in the Sun newspaper, Capello feels he should have allowed his squad to take a two-week holiday with their partners before heading to South Africa, instead of embarking on an intensive training camp in Austria..”

Carly Zucker arrives at a restaurant in London with husband, Chelsea footballer Joe Cole. Sports Illustrated.

Who knows? Maybe similar retreats will follow soon enough, on the austerity budget and bold political reform – when similar failures follow on these fronts too?

(Or, I feel obliged to add, maybe not of course, in the truest, most indigenous, post-colonial, independent all-Canadian spirit! Here in Canada we believe in: austerity if necessary, but not necessarily austerity; further stimulus if necessary but not necessarily further stimulus; bold political reform if necessary, but not necessarily bold political reform, etc, etc, etc. And we didn’t have any team at all in this year’s World Cup – that will probably be won by Germany in any case, the local smart money seems to claim. Whatever … God Save O Canada, and the Quebecois nation in a united Canada, here in the bilingual, multicultural, and northern North American second-largest national geography in the entire world today – from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and on and on and on.)