Plucky Little Wallonia

A remake of Passport to Pimlico could satirise the Britain of 2017, as the original satirised the Britain of 1949.

Containing the first fully industrialised area of Continental Europe, Wallonia used to be rich.

It was perfectly willing to use its economic clout to overtly political ends, such when strikes were called in the successful struggle for universal suffrage.

But now, Wallonia is poor. And poverty is powerlessness.

Libertarians, take note.

A person, a family, a community or a country cannot be both free and poor, since there is no freedom without security.

A state or a world with unfree people in it is itself unfree. And the poor, being insecure, are always unfree.

But someone finally asked the areas of Britain like that, not merely left behind but actively betrayed, what they thought of a key part of the new economic order that had impoverished them.

And they answered.

Likewise, someone has finally asked Wallonia, not merely left behind but actively betrayed, what it thinks of a key part of the new economic order that has impoverished it.

And it has answered.

Dorsale wallonne, indeed.