Thanks for this very thoughtful post. History is always helpful, if people know it!

Most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.

"The Privilege of Voting" is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 - 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote in England and America.

It's a real-life soap opera about the suffragettes! And it's ALL true!

Powerful suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO gorgeous presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.

There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!

Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women have voices and choices!

Exciting, sequential episodes are great to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.

I hope you will subscribe. It's free at

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A New Zealand historian (quoted by Norman Davies in his history of the isles) noted:

“The English have little interest in Britishness unless assured the word is a synonym for themselves.”

Just as the English are beginning to disentangle Englishness from Britishness post devolution – a rather delicate operation – along come New Labour with some 19th century nation-state style of Britishness.

To me devolution was supposed to be about dismantling the old British establishment yet what have New Labour come up with? Obeisance to the union jack, oaths of loyalty to the monarchy and putting up posters in celebration of the man who sent in the army against the miners in Tonypandy in 1911 – Liam Byrne’s most egregious suggestion to date by a long chalk.

As others have noted there are two, possibly competing, strands in New Labour’s Britishness debate: Britishness post devolution and Britishness post immigration. An interesting example of this clash could be seen in Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s article in the Independent on St George’s Day two years ago (I’m afraid I haven’t got a link.) In it she rails against devolution – it’s the English, Welsh and Scots who should be made to integrate – our territorial identities and politics are standing in the way of a realising a diverse, multi-cultural Britain!

The New Labour Britishness project is doomed to failure until New Labour gets a grip on devolution.

In all this talk of "Britishness" and the search for a "Statement of Values" there is one unanswered question, who is the target for this orgy of "Britishness"?

There appears to be two separate parts to the exercise. The first is about the integration of immigrant cultures in England and the second about the retention of Scotland within the current United Kingdom. These two parts are quite distinct and have separate audiences both geographically and culturally. Many in Scotland regard the whole "Britishness" thing soley as an exercise in unionism driven by the unionist Labour party but many in England regard it as an attempt to integrate minorities into England in the face of cultural alienation.

To be quite honest I don't think most people really care about a "British Statement of Values". Though there is now more awareness about the difference between Britain and England in England the majority of the population in England have never really made a distinction between being British and being English and I suspect that they regard the banging on about Britishness as a bit odd and a not aimed at them but just another government scheme aimed at integrating the minorities.

For a lot of Scots it's just more of the same cultural imperialism in which they are asked to suppress their own identity and choose an identity which because of the size disparity between Scotland and England is effectively English.

It is being orchestrated by the Labour Government as a top down exercise and it is definitely not a grass roots cultural event which is being driven by popular demand. It's an odd paradoxical mix of old-style British unionism aimed at Scots and political correctness aimed integrating minorities in England by eradicating Englishness. It is nothing to do with social statements or social values as it is purely an exercise in trying to create a cohesive cultural and political identity across Great Britain. I say Great Britain because I'm never quite sure how the Labour party views the Northern Ireland part of the UK.

There is of course another strand to the whole thing which is about Gordon Brown's feelings of social and political rejection which he blames on being a Scot in England. His solution is to replace both Scotland and England with Britain to make the problem go away.

So far, everytime someone has come up with a definition of what Britishness is, - they have to fall back on what has been traditional English values.

By redefining English values as British, I am beginning to believe that they (the establishment) are attempting to rebrand the English. And I for one, will not agree to have my English history such as Magna Carta, rebranded as British History - it makes me angry Mr Brown; very angry.

For your sake, I hope that the other truly English value of toleration of idiots is maintained - and we can continue in mutual contempt until we can get rid of you in a civilised manner. Otherwise it just might have to be the barricades!!

There is no overarching British identity or definition of Britishness. Or perhaps that's it: 'No Overarching Unity' - not a motto to inspire. 'Britishness consists of the endless search to define Britishness'. So let's call Britishness the Higgs Boson of national identities. Epitaph mode: 'we went round and round in circles looking for it; but all we found was particles'. Well, maybe they'll prove its existence; but I don't know if I want to be part of that particular theory of everything when the edifice is finally built.

You might be onto something Nora, but I'd suggest that the REAL problem of this Britishness debate is in the fact that the Britologists are making Britishness confrontational by attempting to define it.

Scottish identity and English identity are not intrinsic threats to one another because they occupy separate territories, separate places and separate spaces.  English nationalism and Scottish nationalism can in fact be seen as complementary.  The problem arises when the majority identity - the majority state-sponsored nationalism - "Britishness" attempts to set itself up in opposition to English and Scottish minority identities by ascribing values and culture to itself that might as reasonably be designated as Scottish or English.  That's not the job of an umbrella identity, or - you might argue - a civic state.

Matters are complicated by the fact that the English have not defined their own institutions, or a space for themselves; and the Brits are fearful of allowing the English to do this.  Although it's British (not English) nationalism that is in competition with Scottish nationalism, Scottish nationalists still rail against Westminster as an English institution; a fact that reflects the failure to ensure distinct institutions for each national identity, a fact that sets the positive articulation of Scottish and English identities against each other, factionalising and contesting the overarching British identity. 

Everyone around Brown is equally conceited, or completely sycophantic, so they fail to acknowledge that the asymmetric beast they have created is inherently unstable and self-destructive.  The question is, by the time they do realise, will it be too late?

Hey, if we're going for three word marketing "strap lines", how about Freedom, Tolerance and Diversity (rearrange to suit individual taste)?

Peter Davidson, Alderley Edge, NW.England 

None of the debate about 'Britishness' has dealt with the real issue. Britishness had historically become associated with fair-dealing. i.e. mediating with due care, taking care to hear the concerns of minorities, attempting to resolve conflict evenhandedly. It is this that is being lost in multi-culturalism. It has nothing to do with landcape, diet, art or public performance. The Brits have always had catholic tastes in all these. 'Britishness' - as in 'tolerance' is being tested by the intolerence of other cultures -e.g. a recent TV documentary highlighted the Arab influence on muslims in the UK and the exortions on them never to befriend a non-muslim - yes, they could be civil to them but never friendly. Now, in my view that is indicative of the problem 'Britishness' has to deal with.

<i>She made a passionate case for culture, including heritage, being the core element of national identity.</i>

I have no problem with that but surely British culture is just a sum of the parts of underlying national identities: English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh (and also smaller denominations).  The devolved administrations have their own departments of culture, their own radio stations, and soon their own TV stations.   I'd say that values tend to be more of a common British currency than culture.

But I don't think of Britian in terms of values or culture. To me it's about institutions of state, government, military, pomp and pageantry.

Landscapes, food, works of art and literature, language, music, sensibilities, taste, manners - these to me are English  (/Scottish/Welsh) or provincial rather than British.  This is not a particularly objective bit of reasoning, but it's just the way that I think of things, and always have.  And I think there are a lot of people like me for whom the words "British" and "English" summon up entirely different associations and emotions.

We're not looking for Brown - or anyone else - to reinvent Britishness.  What the British want is a Britain whose institutions and government we can have faith in and respect, and to be left to get on with the business of being English, Scottish and Welsh without having to give a second thought to Britishness.  The endless agonising over Britishness only serves to diminish it because, when compared to more vibrant national identities of the British Isles (and those abroad), it does seem a bit soulless.  But that doesn't mean that Britishness can't be at least functional and practical enough to serve a useful purpose.