Britain will never be great again until we stop flogging our top companies to the US | Will Hutton

Tech selloffs not only cost tax revenue and jobs, but are turning the UK into a vassal state

There is much to admire about the US. The great French social observer Alexis de Tocqueville, nearly 200 years ago, lauded its commitment to civic virtue, individual self-improvement and hard work - legacies of its puritan founders.

Those traits are still evident today, but alongside them a darker one has emerged. The US, the hegemon of the 20th century still committed to democracy, has changed. It has transmuted into an imperial power careless of democracy but ever readier to exact economic tribute from its vassal states.