THE GREAT AND THE GOOD

Since David Cameron echoed Angela Merkel's sentiments that multiculturalism has failed, the great and the good have turned their considerable minds to this. When I hear great minds debating such things, I have at hand a kind of litmus paper to test their validity. If I can't understand what they are going on about, there's a chance they are going on about nothing. If that sounds arrogant, sorry. I do not consider myself a hyper intelligent mega being. But I do think I have an averagely good brain, capable of grasping the meaning in most things. Therefore, if I cannot grasp the meaning, there will be many like me. And it may well mean that there is no meaning really to grasp, but a bunch of pseuds sitting around bumping their gums, and emitting clever sounding horseshit.
Defining national culture is like netting dreams though, granted. It is a very difficult thing to pin down. That we should be debating it is, I suppose, encouraging in one sense. It marks the end of the Labour project of destroying national pride. This was important to New Labour, because so much of what has made Great Britain great is rooted in an elitist, politically incorrect past and because national pride naturally stood in the way of state enlargement to solve our pervasive "problems". Now the Big Society notion essentially asks us to solve our own problems like the adults we are, pride can once again grow. Whether the seed has been in suspended animation too long, we shall see.

Can one pin down national identity? I'm not nearly clever enough to be a Director of the Institute for Ideas (desperately, it seems to me, arguing my way back from cow towing to the last lot and into ingratiating the new lot, to secure my own funding). But, in my own sweet, simple way, maybe I can (along with you, dear readers) propose a number of things that are still great, about Great Britain. And that the debate now attracts lofty intellect to it raises my hopes that a celebration of what is good may begin to become a policy guide.

Simultaneously, I find myself repelled by my own thought. Nations are lines on maps, little more. There wasn't a war yet that was not predicated on notions of them and us. That our shores have emphasised these lines geographically does not suggest their legitimacy. Ask any Scot, Irishman or Welshman! One day, in a Utopian future, there will be no them.

In the meantime, when there is much which is plainly not great, here are some things which put the great into being British:

• Tolerance, mainly
• An intolerance of the boastful and a preference for the understated
• A sense of fair play
• A sense of decency
• The outstanding British rural landscape
• A proud military tradition
• A cuisine which we all moan about, but which at its best is really great
• Free speech
• A vibrant democracy
• Courtesy
• Doggedness
• A most wonderful language, and artists who have used it to the full
• A softening of the heart towards the underdog
• A treasuring of eccentricity
• A suspicion of petty bureaucracy (which I believe will grow)
• Schools and Universities which still have a commitment (which I believe will grow) towards encouraging thought rather than knowledge
• An essentially gentle and humorous outlook
• A decent pint
• A width of architectural heritage which is enriching
• Brainy, creative youth
• Add your own, dear reader, if you will..................................