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Every Day Is Like Sunday
PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown is considering plans for a "Britain Day" to celebrate British culture and values. Typically, the miserable Scot is said to be against the idea of making Britain Day a Bank Holiday. May we suggest a new National Anthem?
Brown is said to be very keen to bolster patriotism in Britain, not least because of concerns of growing nationalism in Scotland. As a Scottish MP, an independent Scotland would leave Brown without a constituency; even increased Scots autonomy fuels opposition claims that Scottish MPs can vote on English laws, while English MPs are unable to vote on those parts of Scottish law which have been handed to the Scots parliament.
Brown's efforts to bear the standard of Britishness have been faintly absurd. He was reported to have invited hacks from the right-wing Daily Mail to watch him cheer on the England football team in last year's World Cup Finals, despite the fact that the rest of Scotland were happily supporting whoever England were up against.
He has also muttered his approval of the US tradition of planting a national flag in every garden. He is not the only ostensibly left-wing figure to do this: France's Presidential runner-up Ségolène Royal also argued that the national flag should be kept out of the right's hands, calling for every household to fly the French flag at Bastille Day.
Brown feels that a greater sense national identity is "necessary in an era of globalisation and the computer culture which allow instant communication across the world." This strikes us as unusual, coming from a prominent member of a political class which has undermined many of Britain's values.
Furthermore, it is depressing to imagine the sort of Britain Day Brown has in mind. Back in the 1980s, a Labour education spokesman criticised against Margaret Thatcher's demand for history teaching to concentrate more on dates and events (rightfully) arguing that events that struck her as the ten most important in British history might not be the same ten he would choose. Thatcher, safe to say, would have gone for the Battle of Britain and Trafalgar and suchlike; the Labour chap preferred parliamentary acts improving the lot of the working classes.
EURSOC can foresee the same sort of conflict in Britain Day. Those among us demanding celebrations of glorious victories over the French and the Germans, or a showing of the entire Carry On film series, are likely to be over-ruled in favour of South London Steel Band performances and other excruciating displays of "inclusiveness."
But still. What Brown wants, Brown usually gets. The Trade Union Conference hopes that Britain will get a Bank Holiday to bring us in line with our continental cousins, pointing to an October break. Brown is not keen, by all accounts, but does want a day to celebrate Britishness.
Can we make a "modest proposal?" One part of the UK where Britishness is still celebrated in defiance of fierce hostility is Northern Ireland, where there already is a holiday dedicated to Britain: July 12. Brown might be more inclined to go for the traditional Orangeman's celebration in the knowledge that Cherie Blair would be horrified.
