A good day to be British?
14
January
So Gordon Brown is calling for a something like a Britain Day.
OK, so I’ll stick my neck out and say that Gordon Brown has just had a good idea. Well, perhaps not the day itself, which will probably just devolve into ‘going down the pub’ day, but a good idea in that the fact that Brown is interested in talking about British identity and multiculturalism shows that at least he is concerned about the issue and might like to do something about it.
However, a Britain Day could be a good idea if we don’t let it devolve into something pointless. There’s a lot to celebrate about being British, and although I’m not exactly sure how you’d go about ‘doing British things’ on the day, I do approve of the idea of a coming together of cultures, which is essentially what being British is all about.
To those people who thing that we should just celebrate St George’s Day, well fine, no-one’s stopping you. But we live in Britain and are ruled politically as Britain, so any civic celebration should be about Britain as a whole. Trying to have a day which honours multiculturalism might seem a little empty if we then say it only applies for England and not for anybody else.
And of course, there always Europe Day (May 9th), for anybody who’s feeling particularly cross-cultured. Must get around to buying that EU flag…
1. Toque | October 10th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
There’s no problem with the concept of a Britain Day - we need more bank holidays - but if Labour were serious about devolution they would have no problem with the individual nations deciding for themselves what special day they want as a bank holiday.
I bet you, a penny to a pound, that they would choose St George, Andrew and David. And they would leave Rememberance Day as a day of solemn reflection rather than Brown’s flag-waving jamboree.
2. MatGB | October 11th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
You’ve been trawling the archives haven’t ye? Cool; I’m really liking the category system WP gives you, slightly worried I’m going a little overboard but still.
Anyway, yes, agree; it should be something decided at the appropriate level, I’d have no problem with a Britain, England and Devon day, I’d prefer both to some of the Bank Holidays we have got (I’ve never had a job that gave me bank holidays off, not sure I’d want one).
Personally, I’m not sure I would choose St George, but that’s probably the atheist in me going “what has a middle ages Turk got to do with me anyway?”. But Remembrance Day would make a lot of sense, and appeals to me on many levels, except for the “isn’t it time we moved on” aspect (I work for a German company, the number of kids that get attacked for simply being German really pisses me off).
Ah well.
3. riddiford | October 16th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
great and informative website
riddiford
4. Beano | March 3rd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Given the lack of bank holidays in this country compared to most other western country’s there’s no reason why we can’t take the Saint’s days and have a “Britain Day” as well.