Atkinson, to my surprise, has echoed some of I what have personally experienced in England: the intolerance of people to my views and criticism and even their opposition to my free speech. Repression without a police state.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51