Tag Archives: Political Correctness

English state education – a project to culturally cleanse the English

Ask an English child of 2011 about the iconic dates of English history such as Hastings, Blenheim and Waterloo and your chances of getting a correct answer are very small. Quiz them on who was Alfred the Great  or ask them to describe the outcome of the Spanish Armada and the odds are that you will be met with blank stares. Pose a question relating to English geography such as the position of the Chilterns or the course of the Severn and a shrug of the shoulders is the likely outcome.  Mention a Shakespeare play or a Dickens novel and childish eyes are wont to roll. 

Sadly, the modern English child is more likely to be able to tell a questioner about the Muslim festival of Ramadan than relate the story of Easter. They will know more of the geography of Africa (if they know any geography at all) than of England. On the rare occasions when they are told about England’s history, it will only be in the context of the country’s “evil” past, with the Atlantic slave trade elevated to the status of the ultimate act of historical immorality and  the  Empire recounted as an unrelieved tale of the exploitation of native peoples.

The upshot is that we have several generations of English children who have commonly left school with next to no meaningful knowledge of their own history and higher culture. That applies not only to those who depart education with a basic school education at the age of 16, but even those who go on to university. Worse, their education is designed to leave them with, at best, a belief that they have nothing to be proud of because they are English, and,  at worst, that they should be thoroughly ashamed of the fact that they are English.

The conscious intent of the liberal elite is to create a belief amongst the English that they, of all peoples, are not worthy of a national identity. Most of the English do not actually believe this even at the intellectual level and  they still have a primal sense of being English  because  of Man’s innate tendency to associate with “the tribe”. But this is beside the point. By being denied  access to their history and culture, English children are left without a bedrock of conscious  cultural imprinting to build upon their natural and healthy communal instincts.  They are like children of good natural parts who have been denied schooling. 

Education, of course, is far more than academic study. It is about the general development of the child.  Modern psychological research consistently fingers the peer group as most potent influence on the development of a child, far more influential than the family.  Those who doubt this is might care to  reflect on the fact that children speak with the accent of their peer group not that of their parents.

The dominance of the peer group is vitally important because it means that children can potentially be manipulated en masse. If they do not take their view of the world from their parents – and children commonly reject their parents’ views – they have to take their view  from elsewhere. That leaves them vulnerable to elite propaganda, especially that pedalled by the mass media and schools. The important point here  is that parents as a class have many views, an elite ideology  has  one view. The danger is that the elite can succeed at least partially in forcing a single view of the world onto all or at least most children.

A peer group whose members have been properly socialised in their history and culture and who have been given a generally positive view of their society, will reinforce that view themselves. A group robbed of that knowledge and mentality will be less inclined – because they have less positive information and reinforcement about their “tribe”  –  to amplify what they glean from the adult world. They may build upon the negative propaganda ceaselessly fed to them by schools, by the media and by politicians and by the persistent promotion of other cultures as superior to their own. Most damagingly, they are in danger of being conditioned to believe that they, the native people of England, are but one ethnic group amongst many, that they have no special cultural claim within their own land.

If England is to survive as more than a geographical entity, it is essential that the young be imprinted with a knowledge of the  immense achievements of Britain in general and England in particular and a sense of what the English have been.

No nation can maintain itself if it does not have a profound sense of its worth. In a healthy society this sense of worth simply exists and children imbibe it unconsciously. Our society has been so corrupted by a  mistaken educational ideology and the liberal’s hatred of his own culture,  that a conscious programme of cultural imprinting  is necessary. If it is not done, how long will it be before English children express surprise when told they are speaking English and not American? The corrosion of English society can only be halted if pride of England and her achievements is instilled in the young.

The words of the younger Pitt in 1783 (following the disaster of the American War of Independence) seem peculiarly apt for our deracinated time:

We must recollect … what is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.

That the tribal  sense of English identity is still immensely strong can be seen in the way the English take the opportunity to publicly  express their patriotism in the only regular way left to them – through their support for sporting teams. The English fans of all the major team sports are truly amazing in their dedication to their national teams. Go to any football game or Test match  involving England  played overseas and you will see a support unmatched by any other travelling supporters. See how a forest of St George’s Crosses sprout when a football world cup is on. Marvel at the reception given to the England Rugby team after they returned as world champions.  It is also noteworthy that in recent years the English have taken the opportunity to come out in ever increasing numbers for occasional national  events such as the Queen’s Jubilee and the Queen Mother’s funeral, surely a sign of English national pride being frustrated in most other ways.  There is a generation of English children just waiting to be given their sense of historical place and culture back. All it needs is the political will to do it.

A guide to Anglophobe propaganda

The England-haters use contradictory propaganda tactics in their quest to undermine any attempt to give England a political voice or any other  point of national focus.  They argue that England is too large to be given a parliament because it would be overly dominant in what would be a de facto federal Britain (Ken Clarke). They say that the English cannot be trusted with power because they are a violent people (Jack Straw). They rant that  English nationalism is dangerous (Gisele Stuart). On the obverse of the Anglophobe propaganda coin they argue that there is no such thing as Englishness, no such people as the England, that England is simply a geographical expression (John Prescott).    The two positions: that the English are dangerously nationalistic and there is no such thing as the English cannot both be  sustained, because if the English do not exist they cannot be dangerously nationalistic and if they are dangerously nationalistic they must exist.

The anti-English camp can rely on Britain’s national politicians to decide whether or not England has a Parliament and a government devoted to her sole interests.  Other points of national focus such as England’s dominant role in world history and her sporting teams are more problematic because , unlike an English Parliament and government,  they actually exist. The Anglophobes deal with the history problem with a two-pronged attack.

They ensure that English history is barely taught in schools and such history as is taught is slanted to cast the English (and British) in the role of historical villains, most notably in the case of the Atlantic slave trade, the British Empire  (although little is taught about the Empire beyond  the message that it was a case of colonial exploitation and that it was that exploitation which made England/Britain rich, a claim which at best is simply wrong  – it was the industrial revolution which made England then Britain rich – and at worst a politically motivated lie.  Teaching the history of the Empire in any depth would of course run the risk of those being taught beginning to think what an amazing thing it was for a country  on the edge of Europe to have  created such a political and geographical edifice and from there to begin to think that only an extraordinary people could have managed such a feat.

As for institutions such as England’s national sporting teams,  there is nothing the England-hater likes more than to see such teams being regularly beaten.  To this end virtually unfettered access to England’s top-level sporting  club sides by foreign players and coaches is permitted. This results in fewer and fewer opportunities for English players  even in the most popular English game, football, where less than a third of the players who start in the Premier league each week are English.   This smaller player pool also gives national selectors the excuse to try foreign players who have qualified for England through very lax qualification rules to play in England sides, a fact that drives the Anglophobes to paroxysms of delight for the more than an England side is one only in name, the happier they are for it satisfies their desire to both have a side which is less and less attractive to the English and one which represents their fantasy of a “diverse England”.  For the same reason of “diversity” the Anglophobes also energetically urge the selection of  English born blacks and Asians at the slightest provocation. Let  an Asian take five wickets in a County Championship match or a black score a couple of goals in the Premier league and he immediately becomes in the eyes of the politically correct an England prospect.   

Political correctness is the other great Anglophobe engine.  By making “discrimination” the supposed test of fairness for any situation, the politically correct have made it impossible for any perceived favouring of the English, even if this is merely to extol the merits and accomplishments of the English, to occur without squeals of racism, xenophobia, English arrogance and English nationalism  rising from the white English-haters and their ethnic minority clients. Mass immigration allows this type of mentality unlimited rein.

The Anglophobe desire to dilute Englishness as a concept can be seen in two recent media stories.  A film of the Hobbit is to be made in New Zealand. When Hobbit extras were being selected an Asian woman Naz Humphreys, was initially rejected by the casting manager with the words  ”We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be – whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.” (Daily Telegraph 29 Nov 2010). Ms Humphrey’s inanely  commented  ”It’s 2010 and I still can’t believe I’m being discriminated against because I have brown skin.” (ibid).  She then complained to the director Peter Jackson whose spokesman came along with the routine crawling pc response,  describing the casting director’s words as “an incredibly unfortunate error” and  insisting that no one at a senior level would ever “  issue instructions of this kind to the casting crew. All people meeting the age and height requirements are welcome to audition.” (ibid).  The outcome will doubtless be a sprinkling of what Dame Edna Everidge calls “tinted folk” amongst the extras in what is a quintessentially English tale which shock horror! was conceived as being entirely white. How do we know this? Tolkein tells us . Here is his  description of Hobbits: “Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked with mouths apt to laughter and to eating and drinking.” (From the prologue of the Lord of the Rings.)  It is instructive to compare the politically correct response to an Asian playing a white part with the hostile reaction  to white person playing  Othello when the squeals of politically correct rage are unending.

But we do not have to rely solely on a physical description of Hobbits. Tolkein’s stated intention was to create an English myth:

“I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from  the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story – the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing  splendour from the vast backcloths- which I would dedicate simply to: England; to my country. It would possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our ‘air’ (the clime and  soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the east), and, while  possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elsuive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine  ancient Celtic things), it should be ‘high’, purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land now long steeped in poetry.”

He wished to do this because:  “I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own, not of the quality that I sought, and found in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish, but nothing English, save impoverished chapbook stuff.”

Englishness is also attacked more obliquely. Take the latest film in the Narnia series, “The Dawn Treader”.  The C S Lewis books from which the film adaptations are made are both very English in character and tone, but they are also built around a resolutely  Christian theology.  England is not a Christian country in the sense of  most of its people being worshipping Christians, but Christianity is woven into its historical and moral fabric.  It is part of the English cultural skeleton.

In the Narnia books represents Christ or if you prefer Christian values though the lion Aslan. Lewis described Aslan as ‘ “ an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question: “What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia?”.’ (Daily Telegraph 04 Dec 2010).

In  “The Dawn Treader”,  Aslan is voiced by the Irish actor Liam Neeson.  After its release Neeson said: “Aslan symbolises a Christlike figure, but he also symbolises for me Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries.

“That’s who Aslan stands for as well as a mentor figure for kids – that’s what he means for me.”  (ibid)

Walter Hooper, Lewis’s former secretary and a trustee of his estate, commented  “It is nothing whatever to do with Islam. Lewis would have simply denied that. He wrote that ‘the whole Narnian story is about Christ’. Lewis could not have been clearer.”  (ibid).  

The intent of comments such as Neeson is to reduce the world to a multi-cultural soup which remove works such as Narnia away from their English roots.

Such behaviour is  not trivial  because these two examples of the deracination of Englishness are just that, examples.  This type of behaviour is commonplace and the steady drip, drip of the propaganda does have an effect. It should be vigorously  resisted on principle.

Scotch the ban on Scotch

The reluctance of the native inhabitants of Scotland to accept descriptions of themselves as Scotch or the use Scotch as an adjective except in a limited number of cases is a modern affectation.  The celebrated lexicographer R W Burchfield has some interesting things to say on this topic:          

“Scotch.  Scots, Scottish. It is not possible to set down here all the complications of this somewhat sensitive group of words.  The adjective Scotch, in origin a contracted variant of Scottish, ‘had been adopted into the northern vernacular before the end of the 18th c.; it [was] used   regularly by Burns, and subsequently by Scott’ (OED).  But ‘since the mid-19th c. there has been in Scotland a growing tendency to discard the form altogether, Scottish, or less frequently Scots, being substituted’ (OED).  Scots is also a long-standing variant of Scottish.  The outcome is that all three adjectives are still current, but Scotch is the least frequent and survives mainly in certain collocations, e.g. Scotch broth, Scotch egg, Scotch mist, Scotch terrier, Scotch tweed, Scotch whisky,  and a few others.  Scots is the term regularly used of the form of English spoken in (esp. Lowlands) Scotland.  It also occurs in the names of certain Scottish regiments.  But the all-embracing general adjective meaning ‘of or relating to Scotland, its history, its day-to-day life,   or its inhabitants’, is Scottish.  These are  middle-class preferences.  ‘Paradoxically,’ A.J. Aitken reports in OCELang. (1992),’for working class Scots the common form has long been Scotch … and the native   form Scots is sometimes regarded as an    Anglicized affectation.’ Outside Scotland, and esp. outside the UK, Scottish preferences are less well-known.  Scotch is likely to occur, both as adj. and noun, in      contexts which middle-class Scots would regard as either droll or improper.” R W BURCHFIELD (ed.): Fowler’s Modern English Usage. 3rd ed, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996. ISBN: 0 19 869136 2.

The use of Scotch as noun and adjective was not limited to such luminaries as Burns and Scott (David Hume, Boswell and Adam Smith can be added to the list) but was widely used by all classes until quite recently. I have been visiting Scotland since the 1950s and can vouch for the fact that until the past thirty years or so Scotch was still being used frequently as no more than a synonym for Scots or Scottish. The fact that Scotch is still used for Scotch mist, Scotch terriers and so on is in itself a firm proof of the ubiquity of the word in the past because had it not been commonly used it would not have attached itself to so many mundane items.

The fact that the Scotch or Scots now try to insist on being called only Scots is a symptom of victimhood which is itself a form of inferiority.  Peoples who are confident in their existence do not try to insist on foreigners calling them one thing when the foreigners have always called them something else. (This is a trait most starkly seen in the case of blacks: in the past 70 years the polite term for this group has undergone the following transformation: negro-coloured-black-afro-American-Afro-Caribbean-African.)

The English have traditionally called the natives of Scotland Scotch.  They should continue to do so, just as they should refer to Bombay as Bombay and Burma as Burma. The renaming of things, places and peoples is the habit of the totalitarian not the free society.

A people have the right to call themselves what they wish: they do not have the right or power to enforce it on others. For foreigners to allow themselves to be coerced or manipulated into using a term not natural to themselves is bend the cultural knee to the demanding nation.

The British elite express their hatred and fear of England

John Prescott’s office in the Department of Nations and Regions (sic) in response to a question as to why we could not tick English in the nationality box on our census forms – “there is no such nationality as English.”

The official answer to the West Lothian Question has always been not to ask it. Once England enters the mix as an acknowledged grievance, stand back!

— Anthony Barnett

New Statesman, The Staggers, 19 May 2010

There is no need for an English parliament because there is no England.

PETER ARNOLD

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

— Cllr Peter Arnold

Letter in the Independent, 17th March, 2006

 The average Englishman thinks that they have got a Parliament which is the Westminster Parliament and I think resentment could perfectly well be sorted out so long as we could tackle what I regard as this niggle that sometimes English matters are setlled against the majority of votes of the English MPs. This English Parliament would be quite a dangerous remedy to that because it will just take a little step further this sense of separate identity.

— Ken Clarke

House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee, 20th February, 2008

 You hear people yelling about some looming crisis. What do you do? You sit back, sip your cooling tea and don’t bother your fat backside. How else can we explain the utter lack of interest in the possibility of the breakup of Britain, at least as far as the English majority is concerned?

— Andrew Marr

Guardian, 18th April 1999

 Sometimes people say to me ‘You know, David, it would be easier to be Prime Minister if you wanted just to be Prime Minister of England’. And I say ‘I don’t want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, all of it, Scotland included’. I believe in the United Kingdom head, heart and soul. I would never do anything to put it at risk. People need to know that.

— David Cameron

Press Association, 14th May 2010

However much we disagree about issues, we should try to work together for the benefit of the whole of the United Kingdom and for the benefit of Scotland as well.

— David Cameron

Speech in the Scottish Parliament, BBC, 14 May 2010

I don’t care whether pandering to English Nationalism is a vote winner. The very fact that in my two years as leader I haven’t ripped open the Barnett Formula and wandered round England waving a banner shows you that I am a very convinced Unionist and I’m not going to play those games.

— David Cameron

Telegraph, 10 Dec 2007

English resentment of the Scots should never be underestimated as an emotional or indeed a political force. No home-grown Conservative descanting on the iniquities of the modern political system can last more than a minute without noting that Labour’s stranglehold over the Commons rests on its 50 or so Scottish MPs. The West Lothian question, whereby Scottish Labour MPs can intervene in English domestic affairs but not vice-versa, burns unappeasably on.

— DJ Taylor

Independent, 6 December 2009

Since devolution there has been a growing English consciousness and that has given credence to the unfinished business of devolution. The issue is not an English Parliament. It is how you reform the way in which the House of Commons operates so that on purely English business, as opposed to United Kingdom business, the wishes of English members cannot be denied.

— Malcolm Rifkind

Daily Mail, 28 October 2007

The creation of an English Parliament is likely to threaten the stability of the Union. For this reason an England-wide solution to governance of England is unsustainable.

— John Tomaney

Empowering the English Regions, 1999

Whether in the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party or the Ulster Unionists—all of us who share the desire to preserve the Union, must insist that this House does not become an English Parliament. It must be a British Parliament as long as the Union exists, and for it to be a British Parliament it must have roughly comparable powers and responsibilities for the four countries of the Union.

— Malcolm Rifkind

Hansard, 14 November 1977

The average Englishman thinks that they have got a Parliament which is the Westminster Parliament and I think resentment could perfectly well be sorted out so long as we could tackle what I regard as this niggle that sometimes English matters are setlled against the majority of votes of the English MPs. This English Parliament would be quite a dangerous remedy to that because it will just take a little step further this sense of separate identity.

— Ken Clarke

House of Commons’ Justice Select Committee, 20th February, 2008

The re-emergence of Welsh, Scottish and indeed English nationalism . . . can be seen not just as the natural outcome of cultural diversity, but as a response to a broader loss of national, in the sense of British, identity.

— Linda Colley

Britons: Forging the Nation

Government has attempted to tackle the question of national identity before, most recently with efforts by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. These were expressions of nationhood concocted in Westminster against a benign economic backdrop. Now all our political parties must search for an animating, inclusive and optimistic definition of modern England to choke off what the EDL taps into.

— John Cruddas

Sunday Times, 24th October 2010

Everyone pays the same taxes so public expenditure should be on a fair basis. Scotland has done very well, so it shouldn’t be subsidised. There is a danger to the union if extremists in England start saying, why is Scotland getting all this money? The Barnett formula needs to be looked at again.

— Peter Bone

Sunday Times, 10 January, 2010

I was never a passionate devolutionist. It is a dangerous game to play. You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins… I supported the UK, distrusted nationalism as a concept and looked at the history books and worried whether we could get it through. However, though not passionate about it, I thought it inevitable. We didn’t want Scotland to feel the choice was status quo or separation.

— Tony Blair

My father’s side of the family by being Camerons are predominantly Scottish. On my mother’s side of the family, her mother was a Llewellyn, so Welsh.

— David Cameron

Telegraph, 10 Dec 2007

As the economies of Europe stutter and shrink, nationalism is on the rise almost everywhere. In Britain we have been blinded to it by our insularity and by the risible performance of the British National Party. But British nationalism is a red herring in this context. It’s the contest between Scottish nationalism and English nationalism that will do much to shape the future.

— David Runciman

London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 10, 27th May 2010

The establishment of a Scottish Assembly must be a top priority to ensure that more decisions are taken in Scotland by Scots.

— Margaret Thatcher

Edinburgh Rally, 1975

The danger is of a very virulent and unpleasant English nationalism arising after Scottish independence.

— Vernon Bogdanor

Dinner with Portillo – Why Should We Care About Scottish Independence? BBC4, 15th Sept 2009

So far as I know, no one has yet put forward a positive case for devolution to England, based on a moral vision of what England and the English stand for or might come to stand for. Sadly, this is not surprising.

— David Marquand

Our Kingdom, 7 January 2008

What moral vision does the revived English national consciousness embody? It’s pitifully inadequate to say that England should have a devolved government because that is what the Scots and Welsh now have, and leave it at that.

— David Marquand

Our Kingdom, 7 January 2008

I believe that devolution has made us stronger as a United Kingdom and given democratic accountability for decisions in Scotland and Wales that used to be made centrally. Across the country, we need to see whether there are further ways of devolving power. However, I do not see a new parliament for England as the answer. The vast majority of the UK parliament is comprised of English MPs, and so there is no reason to believe an English Parliament would enhance accountability.

— Ed Milliband

Labour Space

The break-up of the United Kingdom will give the best and the brightest of the English the decisive push which will take them off the fence in favour of the European Union, not because they love England so little but because they love England so much. For a nationalistic Little England will be a travesty of Britain’s former self, with all its vices bloated and all its virtues shrunken.

— Peregrine Worsthorne

England Don’t Arise!, The Spectator, 19th September, 1998

There is no need for an English parliament because there is no England.

Scotland, Wales and Ireland are fairly homogeneous nations, each with its own clearly defined character and culture. That is why devolution (or independence) has been quite successful in all three. In England, the picture is far more complex. There are millions of Scots, Welsh and Irish living in England. The overwhelming majority of non-white migrants also live in England, along with many hundreds of thousands of other Europeans and people from other parts of the world. England is the genuine mongrel nation, and I welcome that. This fact however, makes identity far more complex and difficult than in the other British nations.

For example, I regard myself first and foremost as a Northumbrian, then as British, and finally as European. Here in the north-east we only began to be part of the nation after 1603. Before that, the independent kingdoms of England and Scotland played havoc with the area, and used it (and abused us) for their own dynastic ends. I have no loyalty to England. For me, the British state has meaning and relevance precisely because it has little connection with a brutal past based on ignorance and exploitation.

The answer to the West Lothian question is the creation of a fully federal United Kingdom, based on Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England. There would still be disparities of size, but these would be far less than a separate English parliament would create. The failure of the referendum in the North-east in 2004 doesn’t invalidate the concept. Devolution is working in Scotland and Wales; and independence has given most of Ireland a new lease of life. We just need to expand that successful formula to the rest of the United Kingdom.

PETER ARNOLD

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

— Cllr Peter Arnold

Letter in the Independent, 17th March, 2006

It is not the English people’s fault that they make up 80% of the population of the UK, but it does mean that England cannot sit happily alongside the other nations as a political unit. The only sustainable federations are ones where the constituent parts are more or less the same size. This means revitalising the case for democratic regional government in England (not dismissing it, as the Conservatives are doing).

— Richard Laming (Federal Union)

Letter to the Guardian, 19 February 2009

Let us not forget that in Scotland the Scottish Constitutional Convention had eight years to develop their proposals for the Scottish Parliament. Then those proposals were put to referendum. In England there needs to be an equally wide process of deliberation and consultation: the English deserve no less.

— Robert Hazell

Public Law; 2001, Summer, 268-280

Coalition Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on  the 16th November 2010 stated, at the Hansard Society event, ‘that there is no evidence at all that devolution leads to inequalities.’ 

 Oliver Letwin’s  reply ‘that David Cameron is England’s First Minister’ when asked if England like Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should have a first Minister? – stated at the conservative party conference, fringe event, 2010

It isn’t “just sport”

Sport  has  a  particular  importance to  England  at  present  because sporting sides are the only source of national focus the English  have. The  English  are  denied a parliament,  they  are  betrayed  by  their political  elite who shudder at the idea of English  nationalism,  they are constantly insulted by the national media,   but the national sides continue. These sporting institutions  permit the English to articulate their  feelings as a tribe.  Even  English men  and women  without  any interest in sport should support them for that reason if no other.

Those  who say “it’s only sport”  should stand back and reflect on  the amount of time, effort and money which is spent throughout the world on sport. Women may be generally less enthusiastic,  but sports  obviously speak to a deep seated desire within men.

Man  is  a  tribal animal.  If he were not it would matter  not  a  jot whether  one team won or another,  unless money was on the result.  But manifestly men do care and care passionately when no material advantage is  to  be  gained or lost by the result.  In  fact,  the  relationship between  a football fan and his club is probably the most  enduring  of his life, for it commonly begins in childhood and ends only with death.

The  outpouring  of joy when a goal is scored dwarfs any  other  public expression  of  positive  feeling  today.  Those  who  imagine  that  a football  club  is merely a business and that selling  football  is  no different from selling baked beans, fail to understand the game and  the fan.

Sporting heroes are heroes in the literal sense for they play the role of the champion whether it be in single combat (tennis) or as part of an army (football). There is something primal about this.   Watch even a powerful man  in  the presence of his sporting hero and the  powerful  man  will almost certainly be unconsciously  deferring to the sportsman.

Team sports are war games, a war game in fact as well where men meet in a  form  of direct  physical confrontation  which  is  a  pretty  good substitute  for  tribal war,  war fought hand to hand  with  sword  and shield  and  spear.  Sport is  war without the  weapons.  That  is  its primal  glamour.

Because of their  function as lightening rods of national feeling  the  existence of England sides are  hated and feared by  our  elite. The  erstwhile  and now deceased Labour Sports minister,   Tony  Banks, persistently  puffed  the idea of a British football  team,   something that is indubitably not wanted by any of the four home FAs or the  vast majority of fans.

The  political  dimension  goes beyond  the  English  national   sides. In  these politically correct times sporting crowds in England for  the major sports are also disturbingly white for the liberal  bigot  elite. Vast amounts of time and money have been devoted to making crowds “more representative”, happily with precious little  success.  Football crowds in  particular  are  a source  of concern to our  liberal elite because they provide  the  one opportunity  where large numbers of the white working class can  gather together and express themselves  uninhibitedly without having to gain the permission  of the police. This concern is amplified by  the general contempt which the British  elite  have developed for the white working class which, in the sporting context,  is especially focused on the football fan.  (Margaret Thatcher more  than any  other  individual  fostered  the  contempt    when  she  routinely painted  English football supporters as hooligans and  enthusiastically promoted  the  exclusion  of English football clubs  after  the  Heysel stadium  tragedy at the 1985 European Cup final between  Liverpool  and Juventus. )

But  sport has much more to it than tribalism.  It is a constant  in  a changing world.  It is a source of aesthetic delight.  It speaks to the whole range of human emotions. When a great batsman goes to the wicket  when his side is in trouble and makes the bowling look easy,  the whole mood of the players and spectators  changes within minutes: when a football side which is 2-0 down gets a goal back the swing in moral certainty from one side to another is palpable.  It is much more than being “just sport”. It is a mirror of what it is to be human.

English Icons – an exercise in Anglophobic NuLabour propaganda

Late  in 2005 a body  called Icons Online  launched a  website  English Icons  (www.icons.org.uk -the website is still up but is no longer being actively managed). The  organisation  was the creation of  the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). It  claimed to be entirely independent   despite  being  funded by the DCMS (to the  tune  of  £1m according to the Daily Telegraph 28 4 2006).   The minister with direct responsibility  for  Icons Online was the black London MP  David  Lammy, while  cabinet  minister Tessa Jowell  had indirect  responsibility  as minister for the DCMS.

The ostensible purpose of Icons Online was to provide the English with a sense  of nation by  celebrating English  accomplishments,  inventions, events and such forth.  The public  would nominate and vote on such things and that a number of these  nominations would  be selected to be official English Icons. 

This  was  an official projection of the liberal  propaganda  myth  that the English have no sense of nation and the  Icons’ website unashamedly  made  this intent clear:” Some people argue that there is no such thing as  a  shared  English culture.  They say all those  invasions  by  the Normans  and  Romans  simply left  us with a  ‘hotch  potch’  of  other people’s  cultures.  Paradoxically,  this melting  pot  is  what  makes England  unique.  And today’s multicultural communities make  this  mix even more vibrant and interesting.” 

The covert reason Icons Online was created is simple; NuLabour  were  only too well  aware  that the English have an immense sense of nation  and  were growing increasingly restive about their deliberate marginalisation  by the  British  political elite,  who besides  regularly  insulting   the English, siphon off vast amounts of English money to give to the Celtic Fringe   whilst denying the English any national political voice in  an English Parliament having given such a voice to the other parts of  the UK.

The  Blair Government   was  trying control this growing English  unrest  by creating a soviet-style propaganda unit whose ostensible purpose  was to give voice to  the wishes of the people,  but  whose real purpose was to   produce  a  preordained  propaganda  scenario.   The   preordained propaganda  scenario  in this instance was to portray  England  and  the English  as a happy-clappy  multicultural heaven.  This  intention  was signalled  not only in  the passage from their website  quoted   above, but  also  by the choice of The Windrush as one of the  original  panel chosen Icons. Further evidence comes from  the official minutes of the Icons advisory board (available on the ICONS  website). The minutes for  13 10 2005 stated:

“JD [Jerry Doyle,  Icons’ MD] reported that the Daily Mirror had agreed to be media partner to the ICONS project at launch stage.  Efforts  had also  been  progressing  to  ensure that  ICONS’  partners  were  fully involved in the project. It had been a great success to date, and there was an impressive coalition of support from the National Trust. English Heritage and a range of city museums.  Being inclusive was also crucial to  the project and JD said she was pleased to report involvement  from the Black Cultural Archives,  the Jewish Museum and the Muslim Council. Efforts would continue over time to include other groups.” 

While  the  minutes for 8 12 2005 run:

“Partnership news was reported to the meeting by JD. Meetings had taken place  with the Football Association, Pride personnel in  Brighton  and Mencap  (re an art competition in 2006).  ICONS attended the launch  of Islam Awareness Week to build up contacts and Ken Livingstone  supplied his nomination at the event.”

According to the Icons   website,  the  official icons were to be chosen by  “An advisory board [which] has been set up to help us sift  through nominations and decide which will be featured on this site. This group,  drawn  from a wide range of backgrounds and experience,  will  consider all  your comments and suggestions – as well as the public  vote.”   “A wide range of backgrounds and experience” eh?   The board  is comprised of entirely of  public servants, members of Quangocracy,  mediafolk and academics.  The nine members included these three (text taken from Icons website):

“Vineet  Lal is currently England Brand Manager with Enjoy  England  at VisitBritain.    Enjoy  England  is  the  official   national   tourism organisation for England,  and Vineet has been working with the England team since its inception in March 2003.  Originally from Edinburgh,  he grew  up  in  Scotland and his tourism career  has  included  roles  at Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board and  isitScotland…  [He]  thinks it  is  a  delightful  irony that someone with  such  a  strong  Celtic background should end up working on a brand strategy for England!”

“Jo  Turner is head of Arts Online and International at the  Department for  Culture Media and Sport.  She has worked for the department  since 1993 looking after policies concerning sport and young people, widening access  to museums (including the introduction of free admission),  and broadcasting.  She  also looks after DCMS policy  matters  for  Culture Online.  She has worked as Private Secretary to Ministers dealing  with Sport,  Broadcasting and Tourism.  Jo has a degree in History,  and was previously  a  curator  at  the  Imperial  War  Museum,   dealing  with photograph  collections,  and has published work for the IWM about  the contribution made by ethnic minority forces.”

“Sam Walker is director of the Black Cultural Archive and Museum. Based in Brixton,  the Black Cultural Archive and Museum was developed during the  1980s to collect and document the history and life experiences  of black peoples in the UK…”

The last published Advisory Board  minutes (dated  23 2 2006)  includes this  statement:”  The second wave of Icons (for addition to  the  site late April) was discussed.  The editorial director suggested  additions to  his  original list to better represent the results  of  the  public vote. Advisory Board agreed.”  

When this “wave of  Icons”   was announced  in April 2006  they included the Notting Hill Carnival and Brick Lane. I used the Freedom of Information Act  to get the actual voting figures.  The Notting Hill  Carnival  was chosen by the panel despite 84.5% of the public voting NO.  Brick  Lane was chosen with a mere 20 people taking part in the vote.   The  voting figures provided by the DCMS for all 21 Icons were:    

Icon name                votes      % yes    Yes Votes    No Votes

Big Ben                        3321      87.70%      2913        408

Blackpool Tower       1090      65.20%         711        379

Brick Lane                       20      65.00%           13            7

Cricket                         2650      87.80%      2327        323

Domesday Book         1126      80.90%         911       215

Eden Project                 597      30.80%         184       413

Globe Theatre              637      73.20%       466         171

Hadrian’s Wall            1040      74.60%       776        264

Hay Wain                       610      70.80%       432        178

HMS Victory                1378      82.10%      1131       247

Lindisfarne Gospels      245      61.20%        150        95

Mini-skirt                        933      45.30%        423       510

Morris Dancing            6923      88.30%      6113      810

Notting Hill Carnival    2189      15.30%        335    1854

Origin of Species            727      69.60%        504       223

Pride and Prejudice     

by Jane Austen               790      65.80%        520       270

Pub                                 4353      87.90%      3826       527

Queen’s head stamp

design by Machin          596       68.60%        409       187

St George Flag             2265       87.80%      1989       276

Sutton Hoo Helmet       661       64.10%        424       237

York Minister                 735       68.20%        501        234

The Daily Telegraph (28 April 2006) reported that these icons had  been chosen   as English icons because  each was  “one of the 21 most  voted for  icons  suggested  by the public since the website was  set  up  in January”.    Clearly neither the Notting Hull Carnival nor  Brick  Lane was  “one  of the 21 most voted for”.   They were  selected  simply  to progress  Icons  Online’s  openly declared  multicultural  agenda:  the purpose  of The Notting Hill Carnival  being  to include blacks;   that of Brick Lane  to include Asians within the concepts of Englishness and England.

Icons Online  also censored  comments  made about Icons,  both  those nominated  and  chosen.  Here is the  project’s  director  Daniel  Hahn writing  to me concerning comments made about the Windrush which  never appeared on the site:  “  Thank you for your e-mail and your continuing interest in our site. At present we have three comments published,  and ten which have been submitted and rejected. As you’ll see if you browse through the other icons on the site, we are happy to include debate  on our site by publishing comments that don’t support a particular thing’s iconic status;  we are not,  however,  prepared to publish anything  we believe  to  be obviously racist or in any other  way  offensive,  into which category I’m afraid those ten rejected comments fall. “

In addition to  pushing of the multicultural agenda,  the Icons Website was  manipulating matters in the general politically correct  interest. The  most   notable example of this to date was  the  fox  hunting  Icon nomination.  This has been changed from  “fox hunting” (as nominated by the  public)  to   “hunting and the ban”,  something  which  was  never nominated by the public nor voted for.  (The Icons website still has it as  fox  hunting but their press releases have it as  hunting  and  the ban).

Apart  from  being a great political scandal,  the behaviour  of  Icons Online  also  has  criminal implications because  taxpayers’  money  was being  used for purposes other than those which Parliament  has  agreed to, that is   to fund a project to allow the ordinary Englishman and woman to express their sense of national identity.  The further  manipulation  to  prevent non-pc Icons such as fox-hunting being  included  compounds the offence.

I wrote  to Tessa Jowell, my MP Frank Dobson and the  then Tory shadow spokesman  on Culture,  Media and Sport Hugo Swire asking them to  take action to expose the scandal and prevent it continuing.  Jowell did not reply and  Dobson refused to act. 

Swire sent me a long letter which dealt in detail with the manipulation of the fox hunting nomination, but failed entirely to mention let alone address  the  choice of  the Notting Hill Carnival  or  Brick  Lane  as Icons.   However,  he did send me an interesting reply he received from the DCMS when he put down  this Parliamentary  question: “Mr Hugo Swire (Devon  East):  To  ask the Secretary of State  for  Culture,Media  and Sport,  whether (a) she,  (b) Ministers and (c) an official  instructed that  hunting be omitted from her Department sponsored  cultural  icons survey.” (22 5 2006). 

The reply was given by David Lammy:  “No Ministers or officials in  the Department for Culture,  Media and Sport,  has instructed the editorial team at the ICONS project on what to exclude from the list of nominated items.  Such decisions are entirely a matter for the projects editorial team governed by an independent Advisory Board…”

English Icons was clearly a politically correct propaganda  exercise  to “include”  everyone  living in England.  Its effect is  of  course  the opposite: it angers the English and leaves ethnic minorities where they were before:  feeling anything but English  for the icons celebrate not Englishness but something other.

The  fact that so many people (1854) took the trouble to vote “NO,  the Notting  Hill Carnival is not an English icon”,  and only 20 people  in the entire country  bothered to vote one way or the other on the  Brick Lane nomination tells you two things:  (1)  next to no one thinks  they are English Icons and (2) the English are very strongly opposed to this type of political manipulation.    The problem the English have is that a lack of any mainstream political voice.  Until that is remedied   the British elite will continue to manipulate and abuse then.  The  English Icons project is a prime  example of that abuse.

England: the most extraordinary of national histories

The most extraordinary fact of English history is that it happened. On the periphery of Europe, sparsely populated for most of its history, always faced by powerful neighbours, it is barely credible that this people achieved such a prominent place in history. Rationally England should have been throughout its history a small impoverished  backward state, an extra on the European stage. Consider the history of Ireland which was placed in much the same general  situation as England. A novelist who created an equivalent fictional history would be laughed out of court on the grounds of utter improbability.

There is so much that is unusual about England. Not only did she possess the only world empire ever worthy of the name,  she produced the one bootstrapped industrial revolution, has displayed a quite unparalleled political stability and a unique political evolution leading to representative government and perhaps most importantly in the long run  created a language which for its all round utility cannot be equalled. England is the cause of the modern world. Let  her self-respect rest on that massive fact. The English do  not need to invent a mythical past for their self-esteem: the  reality with all its warts is splendid and marvellous.

But history is more than events and institutions. It is about great and influential personalities. England has many to  chose from, I will be self-indulgent and put forward some of my favourites. Alfred The Great (for his preservation of  England), Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Newton, Locke, Wellington, Darwin. All  left a mark on the world which went far beyond these shores.  (My choice does not include any person from the twentieth century because I believe it is too soon to judge their significance.)

Why did England become what it is and achieve what it has? The conventional explanations revolve around such  accidents of nature as its island status providing a barrier to disruptive invasion and its prolific quantities of coal  and iron ore summoning an industrial revolution. But none of these hold water because no individual reason or group of  reasons is unique to England.

Take the example of Japan, which in its island status, close proximity to one of the most advanced parts of the world and absence of foreign invasion for a great time most resembles England, never came close to achieving and industrial  revolution or any form of government which took account of  the whole of society. Ultimately, the cause of England’s difference must remain a mystery. If I had to put my finger on a general reason, I would say that England has come the closest of all countries to maturity as a people. General McArthur memorably said of the Japanese that they were a  nation of twelve year olds. We are not a nation of seasoned adults, but perhaps a nation of eighteen year olds. I suspect   that is about the best any country can hope for.

Is there an English personality? I conclude there is, for I believe all peoples develop a secondary personality. What are the English? They are sceptical, they are pragmatic, they are  (still) natural respecters of the law. Above all they are not murderously violent. It is a remarkable thing that mob  violence in England for centuries has rarely resulted in mass  deaths – this trait is seen in football hooliganism today. The conduct of the English Civil War was wholly exceptional  in its lack of sack and pillage which was the norm on the continent in the seventeenth century. The English have long possessed in spades the qualities which make civilised life possible.

But gratifying as our history is, we must never forget that we live in a dynamic universe. The past is but the past and  old glories no guardians of the future. As a matter of urgency the English must learn to resist the incessant insult  to which they are now subject. A nation may be likened to a man. If a man continually accepts insult or engages in  repeated self-denigration, we think him a poor fellow. At first such behaviour is embarrassing. Soon it becomes  irritating. Eventually it breeds a profound contempt and contempt is mother to all enormities. So it is with peoples.  On the simple ground of self-preservation, the English cannot afford to continue to permit the present gratuitous and  incontinent abuse offered by both foreigners and her own ruling elite nor tolerate the suppression of the English  voice.

How may the English reverse the present state? As with all peoples, the English need to be taught their history to give them a psychological habitation. Moreover, the myths of the England haters dissolve readily enough in the acid of fact.  The problem is that there is presently a conscious effort backed by the forces of the state to deny the English a proper knowledge of their history, or indeed any meaningful  knowledge at all. Incredible but true. The attack is two pronged: denigration and a concentration on historical trivia at the expense of the important.

The habit of denigration has a long history. Here is Friedrich Hayek’s description of the left of fifty years ago:

The Left intelligentsia…have so long worshipped foreign gods that they seem to have become almost incapable of seeing any good in the characteristic English institutions and traditions. That the moral values on which most of them pride themselves are largely the products of the institutions they are out to destroy, these socialists cannot, of course, admit. Sdaly, this attitude is unfortunately not confined to avowed socialists. Though one must hope that it is not true of the less vocal but more numerous cultivated Englishman, if one were to judge by the ideas which find expression in current political discussion and propaganda the Englishman who not only “the language speak that Shakespeare spake”, but also “the faith and morals hold that Milton held” seems to have almost vanished. [The Road to Serfdom]

What the left internationalists did not have fifty odd years ago was control of education or a supremacy in politics and the media. They now possess this utterly. The concentration on trivia is of more recent birth and had its roots in the late fifties and early sixties. Prior to then, complaints about an over concentration on “Kings and Queens” history existed, but no one in the academic world seriously suggested that such history was unimportant. That has now gone. Even pupils who have taken A-Level history know next to nothing. Facts and chronology have been replaced by “historical empathy” and investigative skills. Where once pupils would have learnt of Henry V, Wellington and the Great Reform Bill, they are now asked to imagine that they are a peasant in 14th Century England or an African slave on a slaver. The results of such “empathy” are not judged in relation to the historical record, but as exercises in their  own right. Whatever this is, it is not historical understanding. Because history teaching has been removed from historical facts, the assessment of the work of those taught becomes nothing more than the opinion of the teacher. This  inevitably results in the prejudices of the teacher being reflected in their presentation and marking. In the present  climate of opinion within British education this means liberal political correctness wins the day. Thus history  teaching, and the teaching of other subjects such as geography which can be given a PC colouring, has become no  better than propaganda. This would be unfortunate if the propaganda promoted English history and culture uncritically. But to have anti-English propaganda in English schools and universities is positively suicidal. That it is state policy is barely credible.

The extent to which the state has embraced the politically correct, anti-British line is illustrated by this letter to the Daily Telegraph from Chris McGovern when director of the History Curriculum Association, which campaigns against the failure to teach British history fairly or comprehensively:

 SIR–The landmarks of British history have become optional parts the national curriculum (report Sept. 10). They appear only as italicised examples of what is permissible to teach.

However, this permission is offered in guarded terms. A guidance letter already sent to every school in the country states: “… we would also like to emphasise that it is very much up to individual schools to determine whether or not to use the italicised examples”. However, there is no such equivocation about teaching history through a host of politically correct social themes. Failure to filter history through such perspectives as gender, race, agent and cultural diversity will be in breach of the law. (Sunday Telegraph 4/12/94).

That was the state of affirs 16 years ago. It  has worsened considerably since. How have we reached this state? The root of it was in the mentality which Hayek noticed fifty years ago, but it  required mass immigration for its realisation as a state policy. Multiculturalism was embraced as a mainstream  political ideal in the late 1970s because politicians did not know what to do about mass immigration and its consequences.  Both Labour and the Conservatives initially embraced the French solution to racial tension, namely integration. But by the end of the seventies integration was deemed by the our elite to be a failure at best and oppression at worst.  Multiculturalism was its successor. Once it became the new official doctrine, the many eager Anglophobic and internationalist hands in British education and the mass media were free to give reign to their natural instincts.

Apart from the denigration and underplaying of English history and culture, the espousal of multiculturalism has had  profound effects on English society. By continually denigrating and belittling the English, ethnic minorities have been encouraged to develop a contempt and hatred for England. It is the most consistent form of incitement to racial hatred within these shores, made all the more dangerous by its espousal by the British state and elite.

The practical effects are the creation of a grievance culture within the various ethnic minorities and a belief that English laws and customs may be ignored with impunity, a belief perhaps best exemplified by the Muslim attack on free expression. The position is made worse in that instance by the existence of the Race Relations Act, which is an attack  on one of the things Englishmen have long prized: namely the right to say what one wants without fear of the criminal law.

If England is to survive as more than a geographical entity, it is essential that the young be imprinted with a knowledge  of the immense achievements of Britain in general and England in particular. This need not mean the creation of a  vulgar, contrived chauvinism for there is so much of  undeniable value in Britain’s past that a fictionalised and bombastic history is unnecessary. For example, why not base GCSE history teaching on a core of the development of the English language, the history of science and technology (with special emphasis on the industrial revolution), the  development of the British constitution and the growth and administration of Empire? Multiculturalism should be  abolished in the schools as a matter of policy.

No nation can maintain itself if it does not have a profound sense of its worth. In a healthy society this sense of worth  simply exists and children imbibe it unconsciously. Our society has been so corrupted by the liberal’s hatred of his own culture that a conscious programme of cultural imprinting is necessary. If it is not done, how long will it be before English children express surprise when told they are speaking English and not American? The corrosion of English society can only be halted if pride of England and her achievements is instilled in the young.

The words of the younger Pitt in 1783 (following the disaster of the American War of Independence) seem peculiarly  apt for our time:

We must recollect … what is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our  property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as

Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.

The English must learn to attend to their own interests for reasons of simple preservation. They may best do this by the creation of an English Parliament to provide England with a political and public voice. Only when that is done, may the liberal censorship of the ordinary men and women of England be broken.