The United States is Britain’s most important ally. But America, with its vast military, security guarantees and economic might, is lots of countries’ most important ally. As such, our relationship is inherently asymmetrical. We follow their off-year gubernatorial elections, they don’t know where Wales is. Alas, we are more into them and they are into us.
France, on the other hand, can lay claim to being Britain’s key bilateral relationship. Admittedly, things started off on the wrong foot, what with English claims over Calais, the Hundred Years War and so on. But the Entente Cordiale, a series of agreements signed in 1904, represents one of the most longstanding and successful alliances in European history.
