BLUNKETT LAND
It would seem that Labour has become alert to the growing danger posed to them by English patriotism. David Blunkett has decided to respond to this by setting out his own vision for a better England, both in a recent speech and in an article for the Daily Mail.
‘Now is the time to be proud of our Englishness’, he begins, before opining that ‘We can be English and British, as the Scots and Welsh are British. And we can be Pakistani or Indian and British or American and Canadian and British’.
So that has cleared that up then. Anyone can be British.
But the crux of his argument is that ‘We should celebrate St George’s Day. Not in a chauvinistic way, but in a joyous fashion...Let us celebrate our landscape, our coastlines and the architecture of our great Victorian cities such as Sheffield. Let us celebrate our poetry. Just think or our poetical tradition, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, Milton to John Keats and Wilfred Owen...Let us rejoice in our music, from folk to choral and from our world-beating renaissance of popular music over the past 50 years, through to our great composers...And what about our humour?’
As if we do not need a sense of humour.
He continues: ‘We can cheer ourselves up by rejoicing in the best of what England has to offer. We can build a new sense of English identity, finding its place among the plural identities of the United Kingdom and supporting a wider sense of Britishness. Englishness can be experienced, asserted and celebrated in the fabric or our existence as a community: in our habits, casts of mind, the culture that we daily create and re-create. In this way, we can overcome bigotry, insularity and hostility’.
He concludes with a flourish: ‘We can have pride in ourselves and confidence in our future - building outwards from our localities, to a sense of Englishness as part of a United Kingdom and wider European Union’.
Oh yes? Is that so.
Politics is about more than rambling like some spaced-out hippy. And so is English patriotism. We have real issues that need to be properly addressed and we need fundamental change.
We were never consulted about the creation of the EU. We only voted for a common market. We were we not consulted and why are we paying £12billion or so into the EU? Every last penny of that money comes from England - not Scotland or Wales.
We were never consulted about mass immigration. Why not? Why are we being turned into a racial minority in our own country?
We were never consulted about the devolution of Scotland and Wales. Why not? That devolution affected us too. Why were our interests sacrificed so willingly? Why are all those Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on English affairs? Why are the English paying up to £10billion per annum to subsidise Scotland? And then there is Wales.
Why are we having a Third World NHS inflicted on us?
Why have successive governments set up an entire industry to promote political correctness? Why is our culture and our interests being jeered and sneered at so contemptuously? Why are these unelected and unaccountable quangocrats ramming this neo-communist creed down our throats?
There is no reason for any of these things and we are not going to be fobbed off with a lot waffle about reading poetry or celebrating the English landscape. It is Blunkett who can go and take a hike in the countryside and not us.
‘Now is the time to be proud of our Englishness’, he begins, before opining that ‘We can be English and British, as the Scots and Welsh are British. And we can be Pakistani or Indian and British or American and Canadian and British’.
So that has cleared that up then. Anyone can be British.
But the crux of his argument is that ‘We should celebrate St George’s Day. Not in a chauvinistic way, but in a joyous fashion...Let us celebrate our landscape, our coastlines and the architecture of our great Victorian cities such as Sheffield. Let us celebrate our poetry. Just think or our poetical tradition, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, Milton to John Keats and Wilfred Owen...Let us rejoice in our music, from folk to choral and from our world-beating renaissance of popular music over the past 50 years, through to our great composers...And what about our humour?’
As if we do not need a sense of humour.
He continues: ‘We can cheer ourselves up by rejoicing in the best of what England has to offer. We can build a new sense of English identity, finding its place among the plural identities of the United Kingdom and supporting a wider sense of Britishness. Englishness can be experienced, asserted and celebrated in the fabric or our existence as a community: in our habits, casts of mind, the culture that we daily create and re-create. In this way, we can overcome bigotry, insularity and hostility’.
He concludes with a flourish: ‘We can have pride in ourselves and confidence in our future - building outwards from our localities, to a sense of Englishness as part of a United Kingdom and wider European Union’.
Oh yes? Is that so.
Politics is about more than rambling like some spaced-out hippy. And so is English patriotism. We have real issues that need to be properly addressed and we need fundamental change.
We were never consulted about the creation of the EU. We only voted for a common market. We were we not consulted and why are we paying £12billion or so into the EU? Every last penny of that money comes from England - not Scotland or Wales.
We were never consulted about mass immigration. Why not? Why are we being turned into a racial minority in our own country?
We were never consulted about the devolution of Scotland and Wales. Why not? That devolution affected us too. Why were our interests sacrificed so willingly? Why are all those Scottish and Welsh MPs voting on English affairs? Why are the English paying up to £10billion per annum to subsidise Scotland? And then there is Wales.
Why are we having a Third World NHS inflicted on us?
Why have successive governments set up an entire industry to promote political correctness? Why is our culture and our interests being jeered and sneered at so contemptuously? Why are these unelected and unaccountable quangocrats ramming this neo-communist creed down our throats?
There is no reason for any of these things and we are not going to be fobbed off with a lot waffle about reading poetry or celebrating the English landscape. It is Blunkett who can go and take a hike in the countryside and not us.
posted by erc @ 10:06 pm
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