Happy St George's Day

ACN

What a smarmy creep this man is. At least he's consistent, he was a loathsome turd even as a student.

John

As usual, Straw is talking utter bollocks. It was never 'claimed' by the far right. It was used, quite properly, to indicate that unlike the appeasers prepared to sell us out, some people are proud to be English. Straw is doing what his kind always try to do: lull us with honeyed words while putting the boot in. He has been an integral part of his party's gross betrayal of England, and his synthetic indignation is nothing but a smokescreen.

Nick Kaplan

It is incredible to hear someone from the Labour Party speaking in these terms and I am in two minds as to whether it is encouraging that Straw has finally realised the value of patriotism, or whether it is deeply annoying that he still fails to mention the damage his own party and its multicultural ideology has done to it. One comment did particularly annoy me which was; “ For years the far Right have tried to swathe themselves in the Cross of St George and insinuate that they and their kind have an exclusive right to use it,” Whilst sharing Straws contempt for the far right I would say it’s as much the lefts fault for the flag being associated with them (the far Right), then it is the fault of the far right. After all, it’s been Straw and his cronies who have been telling us for the last 25 years how evil it is to have any pride in ones country or in its own values, instead they have told us that all it means to be British or English is to be multicultural, which is fine if you’re from a minority group, you can just celebrate the culture of your country of origin, but leaves very little room if you actually see yourself as British; what does it mean to say that my own culture is ‘multiculturalism’? The moral and cultural relativism of the left is what has made it seem repulsive to wave the flag of St. George as much as the disgusting views of the far right have done so. Once again it appears these two groups work in tandem to destroy all that is good, much like in 1930’s Germany.

salieri

"Self-righteous bigotry"? Look who's talking.

Lee Jakeman

Well said, Nick. Couldn't have put it better myself.

James J

The people of Blackburn may be celebrating but the people of Bradford can’t because their proposed march has been banned.
The article is just another piece of hypocritical nonsense by a member of a Political Class that thinks Anglophobia is the only acceptable Hate Crime.

CS

Nick is right. For years, the Left and much of the media has told us that the flag of St George and any pride in being English were racist, xenophobic and a sign of the far Right. So, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, decent people avoided symbols of Englishness and the only people who embraced them were those who were proud to be thought racist and xenophobic.

Le Pen in France and racist nutters in the USA similarly wrap themsleves in the Tricolor and the Stars & Stripes just as the BNP does in our flag(s). But the French and American flags never become an exclusive preserve of the far Right because everyone in those countries is allowed to be proud of their flag. It may appear a bit over-the-top when every house in the country flies the national flag but at least it prevents the nutters from ever monopolising it.

Having said that, I shan't be observing St George's Day in any way, not because I'm ashamed to be English but quite the opposite. Like, I imagine, the great majority of the English, my lack of interest in English flags and saint's days is a consequence of my being perfectly comfortable in my Englishness and, therefore, having no need to define it.

All the fuss made by the Irish, Welsh and Scots about their respective saints' days has always seeemed to me to be less a sign of national confidence and more a sign of national defensiveness. In a union of four countries in which one country contains 85% of the population of the entire union, the three smaller countries are constantly trying to define themselves as “not English”. In an understandable attempt to prevent their own cultures and identities being swallowed up by the proximity of their enormous neighbour, they too often end up creating an artificial culture which has as much relevance as a chocolate box lid, a tourism brochure or a national costume.

I don’t mean this as an insult to the general population of Wales, Ireland and Scotland who have always seemed quite happy to rub along with the general population of England. The perpetrators of these artificial cultures and identities are the people who thrive on division and on pigeon-holing the rest of us. Politicians, political activists, the media, anyone who earns a comfortable living sitting on a quango and needs to keep inventing new divisions to justify their own existence. All these agonising debates about the lack of an English identity – where do they take place? Not in our homes or shops or pubs. They exist only in newspapers, on television, in Parliament and across the stripped pine dining tables of those who earn a living from holding opinions.

TGF UKIP

Typical of the current editorship of The Mail that they gave the odious sod a pulpit for his specious, disingenuous, dishonest tripe.

StGeorge

We had a 300% increase on the number of people signing our petition on 23 April 2008, compared with 2007 (www.stgeorgesholiday.com). There is a growing hunger for a national day of celebration on St Georges Day.