THE AMERICA ONE NEWS
Jun 4, 2025  |  
0
 | Remer,MN
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge.
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge and Reasoning Support for Fantasy Sports and Betting Enthusiasts.
back  
topic
The Economist
The Economist
13 Jun 2024


NextImg:What unites a Spice Girl, an opera star and champagne?
Britain | Lining up

What unites a Spice Girl, an opera star and champagne?

A cruise-ship launch in Liverpool

|Liverpool

Ship christenings are not short of pomp and circumstance. The naming ceremony for Queen Anne, a new ship owned by Cunard, a British cruise line, was no exception. Earlier this month officials in civic regalia joined crowds in Liverpool, Cunard’s one-time home. Mel C, a member of the Spice Girls, a British pop band, flashed peace signs; Andrea Bocelli, an Italian opera singer, performed alongside an orchestra. There were confetti cannon, prolonged blasts of the horn and the smashing of a 12-litre Laurent-Perrier champagne bottle against the ship.

The maiden voyage of Queen Anne, whose 3,000 passengers can take part in yoga, cinema screenings and ballroom dancing, is well-timed. The covid-19 pandemic is largely in the cruise-ship industry’s wake. Cruisers from Britain and Ireland booked 2.3m trips in 2023, an increase of 14.5% on 2019, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a trade body. Britain welcomed more than 2m cruise-ship passengers to its shores in 2023, 24% more than in 2019.

Explore more

What separates Tony Blair’s Labour from the party today?

The approach to globalisation is the clearest dividing-line of all

What Camden reveals about Keir Starmer’s mission for government

The latest edition of our Blighty newsletter


Our first constituency poll has awful news for Britain’s Conservatives

Hartlepool is on track to lurch back to Labour in the election. Reform UK is in second spot


What separates Tony Blair’s Labour from the party today?

The approach to globalisation is the clearest dividing-line of all

What Camden reveals about Keir Starmer’s mission for government

The latest edition of our Blighty newsletter


Our first constituency poll has awful news for Britain’s Conservatives

Hartlepool is on track to lurch back to Labour in the election. Reform UK is in second spot


The most Tory place in Britain

It isn’t that posh but its population is old

In search of the white British voter

The most important ethnic group in British politics is the one nobody talks about

The return of the Farage ratchet

The Reform UK leader hopes to reshape the British political right again