London is on its way to becoming Little America

Illustration by David Foldvari

Sometimes when I am walking around central London, browsing for my seventh pair of gingham trousers in Uniqlo, or sheltering from the rain in the hellscape that is the Outernet, a thought strikes me. Are there any Americans left in the US?

Because it seems that the majority of them are here in London. They are here, screaming at one another at the decibels of a small jet landing to get a good angle for Instagram at the entrance to Westminster tube station. They are at the pub saying things such as “standing on line” and “addicting” while smoking cigarettes without inhaling. They are in front of you at the counter in Blank Street Coffee, droning “I’m gonna do…” while wearing brown knee-high boots. They are always making small talk about how much things cost. They are everywhere, strangely sincere and constantly offended when you ask them if they voted for Donald Trump.

It is not just the people. American culture has never been more present in the United Kingdom. On TV, Bridgerton – a rendering of British regency aristocracy for people who have never left the state of Wisconsin – has inspired a wave of American brides to host their weddings in England. Now SNL has decamped to England too, with a UK version that is, while funny at times, too reflexively focused on its motherland to feel truly original. From the first episode there was the distinct impression that SNL UK’s writers and first batch of players were looking over their shoulders towards Lorne Michaels, watching to see if the jokes were landing.

(Perhaps this was prescient. Donald Trump shared a sketch from the first episode of SNL UK because it made fun of Keir Starmer for being scared of him. This is the danger of creating self-deprecating humour that is then exported to an international market. There’s always the chance that the jokes translate to someone laughing at you rather than with you.)

But television is not the only example of what a growing number of people, myself included, are beginning to term “absolute Yank nonsense”. In the House of Commons, politicians are beginning to speak like their American counterparts, thanks to laziness and a new over-reliance on ChatGPT. Back in September, a number of Labour MPs were accused of using Yankified AI to write their parliamentary speeches. Tom Tugendhat pointed out that many of their contributions had recently begun including phrases such as “I rise to speak”, which is common in Congress but has rarely appeared in British political language.

Enduring the indignity that somehow Tom Tugendhat has made a good point at your expense should have been a wake-up call, but it wasn’t. Even without the vehicle of ChatGPT, British politicians’ speech patterns have become more deliberately Americanised. Last week Liz Truss (remember her!) announced that she was launching a “British CPAC”. Rightwing British politicians are suddenly using terms such as “Judeo Christianity”. Oddballs are wandering around central London dragging crosses around on their back or placing them on top of lion statues in Trafalgar Square.

This is the kind of thing that is more commonplace in the US Bible belt, where Christian Republicanism reigns supreme. Unsurprisingly, it reads as a little bit ridiculous when it’s transplanted to suburban England, where your dad’s mate Alan – who has not expressed an interest in organised religion since he was in primary school, putting candles in the sides of an orange for Christingle – has suddenly decided Christ is King and his way of life is under threat.

Perhaps I am being slightly harsh. There are, for instance, some happy consequences to the rise of absolute Yank nonsense out east. If there’s one thing the US is good at, it’s greasy, disgusting, delicious food. We have them to thank for food crazes and culinary creations such as “big sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper that costs £11”, and “New York-style” bagels, where if you queue in Soho for 45 minutes, you too can enjoy a lunchtime classic that you would get for a fraction of the price in Brick Lane or Stamford Hill. We should be thanking Americans for ranch dressing on the shelves in Tesco – tastes like mayonnaise with vinegar in it – and massive pizza slices.

“Big slice of pizza” is how we eat now in London. There is big slice of pizza at Detroit in Islington, where you can also drink Miller Lite and celebrate the 4th of July. There is big slice of pizza at Paulie’s in Shoreditch, which is New York-style, and Joe Public in Clapham, which is New York-style, and Gordos in Hackney which is – can I shock you – New York-style. And of course there’s Battersea’s Breadstall, which opened its second location in Soho last year, offering up New York-style lunches to locals and tourists alike, just a stone’s throw away from M&M World.

I like pizza. I like bagels, burgers, those huge buttercream cookies that make you feel your own dental fillings just by looking at them. I like sweets that contain enough colourings and citric acid to kill a small European child. But I like these things most in the place that does them best: the US. I don’t want to queue four hours in the rain for a sachet of Chick-fil-A sauce (when it opened its London location last month, it went through 10,000 sachets in a single day). You’re never going to get a real American cookie, candy or pizza in London, because all American food is made up of the chemical compounds they found inside the elephant’s foot at Chernobyl. We can’t replicate it, and honestly I don’t think we should try any more.

ChatGPT works by replicating the things it already knows. It can’t be creative in new ways. London’s endless march towards becoming Little America feels a little like that, a replication of something that exists elsewhere, making itself gradually worse in the process. Maybe the UK has always had a “special relationship” with the US. But sometimes relationships should end, for our own good. Rightwing politicians are constantly trying to disseminate the idea that British nationality is somehow “under threat” from other cultures, but it strikes me that they always identify the wrong one. The break-up text Britain should be sending is to the number with a US area code.