Gordon Brown is trying to make political hay suggesting that Britain needs to be more patriotic… like America:
In his speech Mr Brown will embrace the patriotism of the US, saying: “In any survey our most popular institutions range from the monarchy to the army to the NHS. But think: what is our Fourth of July? What is our Independence Day? Where is our declaration of rights? What is our equivalent of a flag in every garden? Perhaps Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday are the nearest we have come to a British day – unifying, commemorative, dignified and an expression of British ideas of standing firm for the world in the name of liberty.”
So much irony: They don’t have an independence day, like us, because they didn’t fight for independence from themselves. And this movement comes from the leader of the left, who says he wants to recapture the flag from the right (sound familiar?). And isn’t it the Europe, especially the European left, that criticizes American patriotism as jingoism?
And the surprises keep coming:
The English language, he will say, should be made an essential element of citizenship, through mandatory language courses for jobseekers found wanting.
Try arguing that here.
