​STREETS OF LONDON

Three weeks after Brexit, a week after Theresa May became leader of her beloved  nasty party, and of Little Britain. Everything that had been great about England still was, and to be honest the only way you'd know about the referendum was that people talked about it because we asked. Like the moments after a cancer diagnosis, the nation could look in the mirror and tell itself it appeared no different to what it had before it got the news. It wasn't the break with Europe that was depressing. Given its thousands of years of existence Britain's time in the EU will barely make a comma in the history book steadily being compiled. The next generation may have forgotten all about it. No, it was like the evening after your friend got her diagnosis she turned up to a party wearing blackface, as though to tell everyone she'd always been a bit fucked up; it was our fault for not noticing. 
Britain can never wipe clean the crimes of empire but one effect has been that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. In these sick, depraved times that was something to hold on to.