It is worth remembering that the "world liveries" project was abandoned not because public perceptions were negative on the whole, but because the people who hated them (and people are perfectly allowed to be traditionalists) complained very loudly about it, not least the late Ms Thatcher. If you look back at the comments from furious segments of the press at the time, some comments would also be deemed openly racist in retrospect (the whole "Air Zulu" saga for instance). I personally think that the Ayling message was a brave and intelligent one, but empirically, when it comes to identity, unhappy people are always going to be a lot more vocal than happy ones even when they are not a majority in any shape or form (in that particular case, as some people from BA acknowledged, there was never any sense of overall attitudes because it was the loud complaints that killed the project from the start anyway).

That said, even in today's context, I would argue that things are a lot more complex than that, and both BA and FT know it. For instance, when my main flight band was still catered with cold food options only, seemingly the most popular of choices was the salmon poke which I doubt would have been a favourite of the late Queen Victoria. Conversely, among hot choices, the sausage and mash which by contrast is as "traditional English" as it gets is also extremely popular as was the fish and chips when once served, but then so are curries, burgers, and lasagna. From what I understand, mezze selections was a very popular sale in BoB too.

In short, I simply do not think that any more than a tiny proportion of passengers base their food choices on "quintessentially English" vs "foreign". I think tastes vary and most people just want what they would consider good food with zero interest in whether it stems from an indigenous or imported culinary tradition. I don't think most people care, and I certainly don't. That said, again, I don't think anyone is trying to "kill" the English breakfast or the afternoon tea here, just to say that if you offer two options to people they might as well be truly different options.