OPINION: Come on Britain and America, what's all the fuss about?

To recap. The British prime minister's Brexit deal suffered a historic defeat. Theresa May survived Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's no-confidence vote. Meanwhile, there is still talk of a general election and a second referendum as the country bitches and moans its way towards leaving the European Union at the end of March.

Over the pond, in America, the US Government is in a state of paralysis over a historic shutdown as Republicans and Democrats square off in a Mexican standoff over the release of money for the building of a wall to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. As a result, hundreds of thousands of government workers in essential services are furloughed, and go without pay.

President Donald Trump is urged to delay his State of the Nation speech because of the parlous state of the nation. Air traffic security worsens by the minute, increasing the eventuality of crashes, terrorist attacks, and the next Super Bowl is put at risk.

READ MORE:
* 'NZ, you're obsessed': overseas media reaction
* Irish community being 'unfairly blamed'
* Six weeks of strife: How a family angered a nation
* CCTV shows family taking Christmas tree

 I mean, they think they've got problems. Haven't they heard that New Zealand is in the grip of a terrorist attack, having been invaded by a one-family crime wave of loud-mouthed, litter-bugging, beach-polluting, motel-wrecking, restaurant-fleeing tourists?

The bedraggled fun-loving criminals' provenance is still the cause of some debate, after the three-generation family of travellers was wrongly accused of being Irish. This has brought about a major diplomatic incident, with Irish/Kiwi relations now at an all-time low after the Irish consul-general lashed out at media reporting of the unruly tourists as being of the Irish persuasion.

The racial slur could have jeopardised pending St Patrick's Day celebrations, but further investigations of the family's track record indicate that the group may in fact be English, and that they are in the filthy habit of disposing their waste products alfresco. It is also alleged that the family members enter restaurants with pockets full of ants and hair, which they insert into meals so that they don't have to pay the bill.  

Kiwis traumatised over freedom campers defecating in bushes and streams became fixated on the travellers as they lurched from town to town in a southward trajectory. The whole country went on high alert as citizens were urged to track the miscreants' progress and send up flares after any reported sightings.

The travellers wouldn't have factored into their sordid holiday plans the smallness of the country and the limited availability of inns they could stay at, once the word was out about them.

Bullying the bullies quickly became a national sport as the country was divided over the alleged cuteness of one of the group's youngest members, an 8-year-old boy, who was caught on camera exhibiting classic learned behaviour as he threatened to knock a woman's brains out.

The child wore an oversized corporate-sponsored sunhat, endearing him to some who suggested that the child was just the ticket for a spot on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where the infant's precocious wise-cracking behaviour would have been interpreted as amusing.

It's hard to believe that this bunch of slobbish hellhounds managed to dominate the news cycle for days on end as Kiwis desperately called for someone in charge to hit the deport button. Watching the extended saga play out must have seemed odd to well-behaved visiting American and British tourists, who would have watched the furore and wondered what planet we Kiwis are on. They should be so lucky to have such storms in their teacups.