Cloth Ears

One of the great things about British patriotism is, of course, its mature and civilised lack of the petty nationalism exhibited by the lesser breeds, which at its worst can lead to such barbarous outbursts as the migrant-baiting falsehoods of the recent German anti-EU campaign, the rape of India by the beastly Mughal Empire and the robbery and expulsion of the Jews by Edward I of France. At its best, by contrast, British patriotism can throw up figures such as James Wild, a Conservative MP with the name of a second-string ne'er-do-well in a third-rate Victorian novel and the smile of a quiet loner type with a mother and a cellar. Wild has brought the full weight of his intellect to bear against a fellow Conservative for failing to include the national flag in a business document, apparently because he has simply squillions of constituents whose patriotism will be outraged when they leave off re-reading Boris Johnson's autohagiography of Churchill in order to peruse the two hundred and sixty-eight pages of the BBC's annual report, only to find an entire dearth of Union Jacks. The as-yet-unpurged apparatchik in charge of the BBC responded with nearly equal relevance that the flag still flies over the BBC homestead, though he seems to have displayed a rather excessive degree of kindness in resisting any temptation to ask Wild what the first B stands for.