Quote Originally Posted by Kevin23 View Post

Secondly, from personal experience on a long-term visit to the UK in the summer of 2008.
Unless you visted the entire country and stayed in the UK for at least 6 months per location (major cities, larger towns and rural areas of EACH county then I can't see how you could make a sweeping statement like that one above. OTOH if you stayed in London for that peruiod then I can easily see why you'd think the tension has been "hyped". Your definition of "long term" (i.,e the Summer of 2008) makes me scratch my head...what would short term be ....10 minutes?.