Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
St George's Day, 2007

To be read aloud in an Irish accent: 

Whenever I hold a £2 coin I come over all Euro-sceptic. It would be a crime to trade in this beautiful and inspiring work of public art for the bland, politically-correct notes and coins of the Euro-zone … The silver bit in the middle, the bronzy bit around the outside, Herself on one face and on the other the pattern tracing the progress of technology. And those thrilling words milled into the edge, original quote from Sir Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Saint George's Day, is it? Telegraph readers at golf club bars make common cause with white van men to bemoan the fact that England's national day goes unmarked. Every other country in the world unselfconsciously celebrates its national day, they whine. Just look, they say, lowering their voices, at what all those Micks get up to on St Paddy's day.

(Actually, nothing much used to happen on St Patrick's Day in Ireland. It was Irish Americans, most of whom have never been anywhere near the ould sod, who started all that green beer nonsense. But no matter.)

All Georgemas gets is maybe get a few red and white flags outside a few chav pubs, a bit of folk-singing, and that's it. Right-wingers say this public diffidence over Englishness is political correctness with psychiatric health issues.

And they're right. Since most English persons of progressive sentiment think patriotism is the refuge of bigots and nutters, it becomes self-fulfilling.

But what’s not to be proud of? England gave the world Shakespeare, William Blake, bitter ale and its magnificent by-product, Marmite. There’s cricket and rugby and, if you absolutely insist, football. There’s Newton and Darwin, slayers of superstition, fathers of the science that gives us a historically unprecedented standard of living and a life expectancy way ahead of previous generations.

England is nearly completely free of religion in its public life; in that sense it's unique in the world, a monument to common sense, and a precious freedom you'll have to fight for in the coming years. Furthermore, most actual English Christians are people of goodwill and moderation and a powerful force for progress and justice, not repression and intolerance.

More great Englishers … Churchill, saviour of Europe from fascism (half-American), Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the modern world (son of a French asylum-seeker), Lennon & McCartney (both half-Irish) … See, despite the loony racial fantasies of the right, the English race is mongrel. That’s its great strength; the gene pool is constantly renewed by new blood and new ideas.

The notion that being part of an island somehow protected England’s racial purity in past times completely fails to grasp the historic function of the sea as a highway. Until railways were invented (by Englishmen), travel by sea was much easier than travel by land.

Your Englander is a mix of Celt, Roman, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane, Norman, Irish, Scot, Welsh, Jew, Italian, Pole, Hungarian, Caribbean, African, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and loads else, all living in a (mostly) open, just and tolerant society whose greatness lies in absorbing immigrants. Yeah, there are problems, but England does this multicultural thing way better than most other societies.

And yet many English liberals baulk at waving the flag because they’re too dim to distinguish between patriotism and nationalism. Instead of celebrating the positive they focus on the bad shit.

The Irish potato famine, the Amritsar massacre and several other colonial atrocities all need remembering, but – two things – first these are British sins and, second, they weren't your fault, OK? Nobody alive today is responsible for the slave trade (apart from the brain of Edward Colston, kept alive in a jar of chemicals deep under Clifton by the Merchant Venturers, awaiting the opportunity to strike and establish a new world order).

And on the credit side of the account ... Fish and chips, Mars Bars, Charles Dickens, King Alfred the Great, William Hogarth, Tim Berners-Lee, Robin Hood, Daniel Defoe, George Orwell, Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Parliamentary democracy, railways, the Rolling Stones, Benjamin Zephaniah, Michael Faraday, Edward Jenner and loads else.

You English, you stand on the shoulders of giants, but until you reclaim it your national day will remain in the hands of cretins and morris dancers.