Positive Patriotism

 These images illustrate two of the reasons why I decided to start this blog.  The man on the left was part of a protest at Portsmouth’s seafront, where small boats in 1940 and naval ships in 1944 set sail towards Nazi-occupied France.  I wondered if the gesture might have been accidental, but the video confirms that, whatever his intention, it was deliberate.  I thought of my great uncle, who died in the battle of Malta, and that made my blood boil. Around the same time, I started to see posts and memes like the one on the right.  Mockery may be a legitimate reaction to the characters in that photo, but this wave seemed to mock anyone who uses the flags of England or Britain, with a hint of snobbery.  You may appreciate the bewilderment of this pub owner , who had been flying flags for years, often around sports competitions, and was bemused to discover that people were now associating them with the far-right. These reactions are part of a deeper ambivale...

  One of the many things I love about our country is the complexity of its early history, and the tenacity of historians, archaeologists, geneticists and others, trying to shed light on its mysteries.   We should celebrate  our willingness, and our freedom, to challenge “official versions” of history.   Compare that with Putin’s Russia, for example. As a child I learned much about British history, and prehistory, through Ladybird books (remember them?)   I never realised how deeply those stories had seeped in, until many years later I encountered new thinking and new evidence challenging much of it.   I find that exciting, not threatening. One of the periods challenged by recent research concerns the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the Fifth Century.   Elements of the far-right have now latched on to this debate, seeing evidence of a conspiracy to rewrite English history and rob them of their precious identity.   I was shocked when a friend sen...