St george's day

Friday

Oscar Edmondson

St George’s Day: who is the most patriotic leader?

15 min listen

Happy St George’s Day! To celebrate, we thought we would discuss who is the most patriotic political leader — and why some struggle to communicate their love of country. Keir Starmer declared in an interview with the Mirror this morning that Labour is ‘the patriotic party’. This follows a more concerted effort from those within the party to become more comfortable with the flag. But is Keir Starmer actually a patriot? How will the ‘battle of the Union Jack’ play out at the local elections? And does Reform have a point to prove when it comes to patriotism? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Claire Ainsley, former executive director of policy

Yiannis Baboulias

What the St George’s Day bores get wrong

It’s St George’s day – a chance to celebrate England’s patron saint, and, for some sanctimonious characters, it’s also an opportunity to berate people by reminding them who St George really was. But there’s a problem with those determined to lecture others: they’re getting their facts wrong. In recent years, a peculiar narrative has taken hold among seemingly well educated people, who have suddenly discovered that St George was a ‘Turkish soldier’, an ‘Arab’ whose mother was Palestinian, or – perhaps the most absurd claim – ‘a migrant worker from the Middle East’ who would be ‘banned’ from the UK. The problem with these claims is that none of them are