US President Donald Trump has sparked controversy in Britain by taking the Mayor of London to task over his response to the Saturday night attack in the UK capital.
The President said there's no place for "political correctness" after the London Bridge attack.
And he said events in London had proved once again the need for a comprehensive travel ban, closing America's borders to Muslims.
In the latest edition of his Washington Notebook, our US Correspondent Simon Marks takes a look at why some Americans seem so surprised by the response of Londoners to Saturday deadly events.
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In the late 1970 and early 1980s, one American voice was ubiquitous in London.
Her name was Jane Walmlsey….she was at the time, if memory serves, a reporter in Capital Radio's newsroom….she was married to a Brit by the name of Nigel….and her Pittsburgh accent became very well known in London….and then won a national audience at the BBC where she went on to present and produce a wide variety of TV shows.
I was thinking about her this weekend because she and her husband wrote a book about the differences between Brits and Americans…..and I thought it was rather good. "Brit-Think, Ameri-Think" they called it, joking that it was a TransAtlantic Survival Guide that would explain massive differences in approach, despite a common language.
Those differences were starkly revealed this weekend in the American response to the attack on London Bridge.
First, of course, there was Donald Trump….unleashing his Presidential Twitter account not, initially, to send condolences or express sympathies….but to suggest that the deadly events in London only prove he was right to try and implement a Travel Ban, closing America's borders to a large number of Muslims. (The courts, so far, haven't agreed with him).
He went on to assail the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, seeming to accuse him of "political correctness". Now the President mischaracterized what the Mayor actually said….but in that willful misrepresentation, he did reveal a radical difference in the way he and many other Americans view terrorist attacks.
They cannot understand the stiff upper lip….the emotion that will be driving millions of Londoners right now to get out of bed, hop on a bus or a tube, head to work, school or the shops and carry on as normal. A trait that served the city during the Blitz, during the IRA bombing campaign of the 1970s and now during another round of violence.
They're not entirely like that over here. Donald Trump Junior took Sadiq Khan to task during the March attack on Westminster for suggesting that terror attack are "part and parcel of living in a big city". Now I don't speak for the Mayor or the Trumps….but when I was a boy riding the Northern Line to school in the 1970s….they were part-and-parcel of living in the capital. Just as they are today.
That's terrible, it's awful, and devastating for those families caught up the attacks. I know that firsthand because a very close family friend lost her life on 7/7.
But it is a reality and throughout my lifetime has been. We are all living, on both sides of the Atlantic, in very challenging times.
And speaking of times….The New York Times managed to blot its copybook with a large number of British readers on Sunday. A headline claimed the recent attacks have left Britain "reeling".
That soon became a social media meme, as people sent pictures of perfectly normal activities taking place all over the UK on an early summer's afternoon….all filed with the sarcastic hashtag "reeling".
What I think is driving the US President's frustration and a general sense of American amazement is the idea that we Brits do take these awful events in our stride. Remember, this was a country where European settlers kept moving the frontier from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific. Empty land was filled very often in a quest for economic opportunity….but also often out of a desire to escape violence, prejudice, religious intolerance and the other vicissitudes of daily life here. If you didn't like the heat, you got out of the kitchen.
So it's a different approach…and I'm happy to report that the book I mentioned - Brit-Think, Ameri-Think - has recently been updated by Jane Walmsley. Not, I think, in time to explain the Trump Presidency. Perhaps that will take another tome entirely.
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