“You don’t hear the word ‘England’ as much as you should. I miss the name England,” he said. “I think England is a beautiful name. And you don’t hear it very much anymore. But (the football team at the World Cup is) playing as ‘England.’ That’s very interesting. That’s good.”
Clearly, Trump’s been doing his utmost to keep up with the news of the country he’s visiting. It’s not like 30,000 people packed into Hyde Park in London on Wednesday to cheer on England, with millions more at beer gardens, pubs, and bars throughout the country. It’s not as if the front page of practically every single major U.K. newspaper was full of praise for the English team that lost heroically to Croatia in the World Cup semi-finals. It’s not like Prince William logged onto Twitter (a rare occurrence) to say how proud he was of England’s team.
To be fair to Trump, he’s hardly the first geographically-challenged American to confuse “England” with the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” something which I personally find more irritating than a warm pint of Carling.
Let’s be clear. England is not the U.K., and the U.K. is not England. The United Kingdom, as the name somewhat suggests, is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. While the big decisions are made jointly at the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London (the building next to the big clock on the postcards), Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also have their own parliaments which debate the smaller stuff, like housing policy and regional healthcare funding. Great Britain refers to the geographical island of Britain.
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