A national day?

Well, it's St George's day. It's not always easy to tell, as it's usually accompanied by a long silence and a few embarrassed coughs. However, if you know what you're looking for you can spot the telltale signs that England's national day has come around once more. Signs include:

1. No official celebrations anywhere, except for a few idiotic ones reluctantly arranged by idiots.
2. Quite a lot of unofficial celebrations, as ordinary English people choose to express their officially unapproved-of national identity.
3. Tiresome rightwing articles about political correctness gone mad.
4. Tiresome leftwing articles about how Englishness = gas chambers, and how we should all be celebrating Eid or St Patrick's Day instead because we're all global citizens you know and ... oh, sorry, did I nod off?
5. People pointing out that St George was Lebanese, actually, and that therefore all expressions of English identity are absurd and/or illegitimate and that anyway there's no such thing as English culture, the Victorians invented it all you know ... and then sitting back smugly as if they were the first idiot ever to have said this.

I'm not a great fan of St George myself - he's a bit of a silly saint and, since he never set foot on English soil, a rather inappropriate one. If we must celebrate our national days with Christian martyrs I'd rather go back to St Edward the Confessor, who was our original patron saint until St George was promoted over him during the thirteenth century. Edward was more peaceful, thoughtful and interesting and he had the added benefit of actually being English. St George took his place when post-Norman crusader kings promoted his cause on the grounds that he was good at kicking Muslims about (not dragons; that came later). Another good reason to demote him, in my view. It's just provocation.

But I am firmly in favour of celebrating English national identity, and am heartily sick of the weaselly, anti-English political establishment (the one run by Scots) telling us we must not do so. I am sick, too, of being told by dopey liberals that the English are uniquely racist and oppressive and that their culture is uniquely debased and sordid.

Celebrating your culture roots you to place and to history. It provides a bulwark against placeless corporate globalisation. It tells you who you are. It takes that culture back from the morons on the far right and extends it to all English people, regardless of their skin colour. It is A Good Thing.

For your St George's Day reading, I prescribe an interesting article here which suggests a reason why the English establishment might be so afraid of such a cultural resurgence. Also an older article here, by me, which explains in more detail why I think it matters. There's some wonderful stuff here about what makes up the fabric of England, literally and culturally. Finally, here is the Campaign for an English Parliament. If it's good enough for the Scots it's good enough for us. Personally I'm rooting for English independence . But let's not get ahead of ourselves.