Proud to be British?

Pride in Britain has fallen sharply over a generation, researchers said yesterday.

The percentage of people declaring themselves "very proud" of the nation fell from 55 per cent in 1981 to 45 per cent now.

The shift is attributed to younger people being less likely to have the "strong attachment" of older generations, the study by the National Centre for Social Research found.

It said generational change had been more rapid in Wales and Scotland than in England, suggesting that young people may be more receptive to appeals from nationalist parties.

Yes, that will have played a part. I should imagine that the continuous attacks on British culture and history waged by the liberal-left had a part to play as well. In his recent report on community cohesion in schools, Sir Keith Ajegbo wrote:

"Many indigenous white pupils have negative perceptions of their own identity."

"White children in areas where the ethnic composition is mixed can often suffer labelling and discrimination.

"They can feel beleaguered and marginalised, finding their own identities under threat as much as minority ethnic children might not have theirs recognised."

Sir Keith quotes the example of one white pupil in her early teens who after hearing in a lesson that other members of her class originally came from the Congo, Portugal, Trinidad and Poland said she "came from nowhere".

Surely cases like this, where white British children increasingly grow up either entirely ignorant of the fact that they have a cultural heritage at all, or being taught that their heritage is evil without exception, cannot be unrelated to the fact that they also increasingly feel no identification with or pride in that cultural heritage, and the nation from which it grew.