MOST FADDY NEW words and phrases enjoy a brief spell of fevered ubiquity in headlines, think pieces, hot takes, TikToks and so on, before fading back into deserved oblivion (looking at you, “very demure, very mindful”, hopefully soon to be joined by everything “maxxing”).

“Enshittification” on the other hand, is going nowhere. It’s a truly fabulous term coined by journalist and author Cory Doctorow in 2022. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary dubbed it word of the year and defined it as “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.” In short, online is increasingly awash with crappy ads, AI slop, swivel-eyed conspiracies, airheads, greed-heads, crooks, scams, trolls and the terminally thick.

However, observing various recent news events unfolding in Britain, particularly in the England bit of the island, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that our nearest neighbours are in the throes of a process of enBritification.

To be clear, this isn’t a bout of Brit-bashing, even though the World Cup is over, and the hurling is done and dusted and the football finishes in Croker this weekend, so therefore it would be natural to resume that other traditional Irish sport just for something to do.

July 18, 2026, Miami Gardens, Florida, USA: England team players are seen at the winners podium after receiving their Bronze Game winners medals at the end of a FIFA World Cup 26. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Au contraire – one has to feel a soupçon of sympathy for them-next-door. They seem to be stalled under an unlucky star; the breaks don’t fall their way these days – hopes and expectations are routinely dashed and anticipated events fail to fully deliver. To tweak former Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway’s famously doleful observation, Britain has such bad luck at the moment that if it fell in a barrel of boobs it’d come out sucking its thumb.

Supporters headed to the US last month chanting “football’s coming ‘ome” with a real conviction that this was where the 60 years of hurt would be shown the red card, with Harry Kane landing the Golden Boot with a hat-trick against France in the final.

Alas, Kane unable. Argentina not only won, but then converted a v-for-victory sign into a raised middle digit by unfurling a banner........

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