I’m not an avid follower of Paul Kingsnorth’s work, but I do remember his One No, Many Yeses. This was a contribution – some may say cash-in – to the burgeoning library on the internationalist, anti-capitalist, and fashionably networky movement of sundry NGOs, anarchists and occasional Trots of the early part of the last decade. As something of a radical travelogue, our Paul flitted from country to country giving us the low down on the Zapatistas (of course), the G8 summit in Genoa, hung out with gold miners in New Guinea, and all other kinds of things. It was an uncritical celebration of this most rooted of rootless movements, an advert for the New Way of Doing Things. The book stuck in my mind because it helped fill an adventure of my own – a bus trip from Stoke to Telford. Continue reading
Tagged with Britishness
Are UKIP “profoundly un-British”?
Former Prime Minister John Major certainly thinks so. I believe the answer is more nuanced than that. Speaking on Andrew Marr yesterday, the grey man of politics said UKIP were un-British because they are “anti-everything“, particularly “anti-foreigner” and “anti-immigrant“. He added that this is “the negativity of the four-ale bar. That’s not the way to get into Parliament, it’s not the way to run a country.” Finally, Major mused that as the economy gets better, you can expect UKIP support to die back. Possibly, John, but only if people’s sense of self-security gets better. Continue reading
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The double edge of British values
I think there is evidence sufficient to justify an inquiry into the alleged infiltration of several Birmingham schools. It might be The Telegraph, but Andrew Gilligan makes a compelling case. All that matters now is that investigations proceed in due course. It is entirely unhelpful and downright opportunist for various papers and the Tories to scrabble for lurid headlines and knee jerk policy announcements, none of which has anything to do with the rise of UKIP and the need to shore up one’s core vote.
While I’m not going to write about the Trojan Horse allegations as such (if only more people kept schtum about things which they know little), our beloved Prime Minister has said something interesting for once. As our Secretary of State for Education has demanded schools teach something called ‘British values’, Dave has had a stab at defining this most vexatious and slippery of terms.
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Muslims ‘are more patriotic than most British people’
The highly respected, independent think tank Demos, have produced a new report on patriotism. Some of its findings will challenge some widespread opinions. For a starter, they found British Muslims have a greater sense of national pride than the average UK citizen.
When asked to agree or disagree with the question ‘I’m proud to be a British citizen’, 83% of Muslims said they agreed. The figure for non-Muslims was 79%. Continue reading
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Britain could be a model unhappy family
Like so many others, the history of my family straddles the nations of mainland Britain. My father’s north Wales relatives have been Welsh-speaking nationalists for generations. And yet my grandfather was a hero in his village when he joined Britain’s merchant navy at the peak of the empire. A proud Welsh identity meant something very different to my great uncle, who played for the Independent Labour party’s football team in the 1930s. He represented a passionate blend of Methodism and socialism; class solidarity had the edge over national allegiance. Continue reading