In 1975 in the United States, New York City was in crisis. The city was near bankruptcy, the unions were getting even more greedy, and uncollected garbage was rotting in mountainous piles on sidewalks. President Gerald Ford journeyed to New York to address the crisis,  delivering a hot-air cheerleading speech (I recall he used the word “resilience” a few dozen times)—but pledged no support and certainly no funds.  

Ford to City: ‘Drop Dead’

Sound familiar?

In a remarkable press conference on June 10, 2005, at the home of Cayman Islands former Governor Bruce Dinwiddy, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Director for the Americas and Overseas Territories, Mr. Robert Nicholas Culshaw, put to an end any speculation of when the check from England would arrive. It won’t.

What Mr. Culshaw said was that the people of the Cayman Islands might have had “a problem with expectations” regarding any direct financial aid from the UK. In essence, he said, England hasn’t given the Cayman Islands any money, it doesn’t intend to give the Cayman Islands any money, and if there is, God forbid, another hurricane in our future, it’s not going to give the Cayman Islands any money in that instance either.

It was pointed out to Mr. Culshaw that England, in fact, had given millions of dollars to Grenada in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, and Grenada—unlike the Cayman Islands—was not even a British Overseas Territory. Shouldn’t “family” come first? Mr. Culshaw was asked. Mr. Culshaw’s response, minus the “diplomatese,” was this: “Don’t hold your breath.”

These matters with England, of course, are serious and extend to the issue of whether England should even have Overseas Territories. If England doesn’t wish to—or isn’t able to—assist its territories when any one of them is confronted with a disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Ivan, it is arguable that it should not have those territories at all.

A modicum of decency in its foreign policy would dictate nothing less than a re-examination of its responsibilities that go along with being the proverbial “Mother Country.” After all, “mothers” have obligations to their offspring. When it comes to Overseas Territories, just think of it as “going with the territory.”