Wider still and weaker?

摘要

Britain's empire, in the sense of overseas territories under United Kingdom sovereignty, has shrunk and shrunk: it now consists of just 14 islands, rocks and barely inhabited strips of land, the biggest of them in Antarctica. Meanwhile, the body that emerged from the empire 60 years ago, the Commonwealth, risks the opposite: growing so large, loose and floppy that it merges with the rest of humanity.