Picture of wooden artist dummy with UK flag

Just in time for Christmas - after 6 years of being harangued at Passport Control, questioned a million times and having to cough up around a £1000 a year for the past 3 years, I can now say I’m a whinging Pom.

And on my first day of being a Citizen of the United Kingdom - I was stumped by this piece of poor user experience design when applying for my British Passport.

To be honest - I thought this had to be a joke, to test how much I could remember from the Life in the UK test.

So pop quizz - Do I live in a Country called the United Kingdom? or a country called England?

Lets see -

  • The United Kingdom has a Monarch as Ruler - England has the same Monarch living and reigning here.
  • The United Kingdom doesn’t have United Kingdom Day quite like Australia Day, but England has St Georges Day and we still don’t get a day off for that.
  • Within the United Kingdom is England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and a few Principalities - England has England
  • The United Kingdom has a Prime Minister - England has none
  • The United Kingdom has Westminster Parliament - England has the London Assembly (everywhere outside of London doesn’t matter)
  • England is not a member state of the EU - nor is Wales or Scotland, etc
  • England is not a member of the UN
  • Even the French call ‘it’ Great Britain

Like seriously - I live in England, but its not a country. The Country is the United Kingdom.

Unless of course you consider yourself to be a separatist or nationalist from those independent countries of Scotland, Wales or - Jersey.

Tags: Citizenship, UK

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Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.
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