Declining Britishness

The crying need for enhanced Britishness, which aside from continued Blairishness is the only known policy of the Prince in Waiting, Gordon Brown, was highlighted today as the National Centre for Social Research found that "pride in Britain has fallen sharply over a generation, with younger people less likely to have their elders' strong attachment to Britain". There appears to be "a gradual long-term process of declining British identity". In 1981, the year the future People's Bulimic embarked upon her career amid sickening pageantry, fifty-five per cent of people declared themselves "very proud" of Britain; at present the figure has fallen to forty-five per cent. Perhaps we have all been watching too much cricket.

The loss of pride in Britishness has been most rapid among the benighted Celts in Scotland and Wales. "In Wales, and even more so in Scotland, substantial minorities did not feel British at all," the researchers said; while "senses of British identity and pride in Britain were strongest in England", possibly because the distinction between English and British is too subtle for the kind of idiot who is capable of feeling pride in an artificial agglomeration of constitutional disorders whose foreign policy is determined by the United States and whose domestic policy is determined by Rupert Murdoch.