GARY BUSHELL: The contempt with which English patriotism is handled by the BBC and Channel 4 should finish.
George Orwell had a deal with on this drawback (Picture: Getty)
For years I begged the BBC to have fun St George’s Day, solely to be met with indifference and sometimes contempt. Now I’m begging them NOT to as a result of at any time when they do make a present about Englishness it’s both begrudged and deceptive or contaminated with trendy metropolitan prejudices. Tv sorts clutch at their pearls at any time when celebrating our heritage is usually recommended. That type of cultural festivity is completely tremendous for the Scots, Welsh and Irish, however to our po-faced elite, St George’s Day is one way or the other inherently dodgy.
It has been this manner because the Thirties when a few of England’s most over-educated fools noticed Soviet Communism as an earthly paradise and our personal nation as tainted by the stains of imperialism. As George Orwell famous: “England is maybe the one nice nation the place intellectuals are ashamed of their very own nationality.”
Since Stalin’s crimes in opposition to humanity have been uncovered, Marxist intellectuals have weaponised their self-loathing by supporting overseas despots and/or the schizophrenic Greens. The one flag many MPs appear to treasure is blue with 12 gold stars.
Some years in the past, when Channel 4 have been making a documentary about Englishness, I allow them to movie at a St George’s Day occasion I promoted in Purfleet, Essex. There have been a number of black and Asian folks there, however unusually none have been caught on digital camera.
It was quickly clear why. It was a set-up. The present, 100% English, requested folks to take a DNA check. Their undeclared objective was to seek out overseas ancestry in our genes and subsequently declare that Englishness was a fable.
Despite the fact that the corporate behind the check explicitly said that it couldn’t be used to seek out instant ancestors. And you could possibly apply the identical assessments to each European nation and get related outcomes with out anybody questioning their proper to nationhood.
Solely the Nazis and C4 consider patriotism when it comes to race.
The BBC’s drawback with St George’s Day is longstanding. EastEnders celebrated American Independence Day, the French Revolution, and Diwali, lengthy earlier than St George received a glance in. When it did, it was an Alfie Moon rip-off. In 2012, they did it correctly. Simply as soon as.
In 2000, they made a documentary about Englishness, filming me in a relatively up-market rose backyard whereas Billy Bragg (BBC-friendly folks singer, voice like a ruptured donkey) gave his different view in opposition to the background of a council property I had truly lived on!
Billy was the voice of the folks, you see, regardless that he resided in a 25-room Victorian mansion in Dorset on the time…
This disdain just isn’t confined to broadcasters. English historical past is both not taught in faculties or distorted. Gordon Brown’s Britishness classes have been solely taught in English faculties, not Welsh or Scottish ones.
The Metropolitan Police dominated London taxis can’t sport the English flag. Blair’s Labour authorities tried to separate England into areas – higher to suit into the Euro-mincer. Havering council just lately cancelled a St George’s Day scouts’ parade on ‘security’ grounds.
But we’ve a lot to be pleased with. As Ian Dury as soon as sang: “There are jewels within the crown of England’s glory, too quite a few to say however a number of.”
Authors, comedians, dramatists, philosophers, scientists, inventors, poets, artists, musicians, film-makers, seaside postcards, youth cults, and sporting greats.
Soccer, cricket, rugby, garden tennis, badminton, darts, and rounders all began right here, together with fashionable boxing.
People have constructed empires because the third century BC. Ours was extra benign than most. The Royal Navy sank the slave commerce. This sceptred isle gave the world commerce unions, Wat Tyler, Robin Hood and Parliamentary democracy.
I’d throw in a breed of display Englishmen performed by the likes of David Niven, Richard Attenborough and Ian Carmichael who have been stable, dependable, first rate, and can-do with out being brash or boorish; well-mannered with out being moist.
There are nonetheless pubs, villages and scooter golf equipment who maintain annual St George’s Day occasions. Rising up in post-rationing south-east London, we all the time celebrated St George, the ladies carrying pink roses, the lads sinking pints of English ale. (I filmed an occasion like this in Nineties present With out Partitions: The Nationwide Alf, nonetheless on YouTube).
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As an Englishman, I don’t hate different cultures. I simply need to have fun mine.
As Devon folks duo Present Of Palms sing of their track Roots: “I’ve misplaced St George within the Union Jack, it’s my flag too and I need it again.”
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