What image comes to mind when we think of Britain today? I was moved to contemplate this question after reading the Prime Minister’s inspiring treatise on British values, which seemed to involve ‘being quite nice’ and not referring to other people as kaffir and then trying to blow them up. Fair enough. I suppose — as an image of Britain, Sonny and Cher jihadis bringing their arcane and vicious sandblown squabble to the streets of London is perhaps a more modernist take on John Major’s vision of an old maid cycling to morning communion through the early morning mist.
I suppose cyclists should be somewhere in our new vision of Britain, but I don’t think they’d be on their way to communion; they’d be dressed in Lycra and self-righteousness, screaming obscenities at motorists and pedestrians. A morbidly obese chav cramming a ton of cardioburger down his vast gullet while waiting in the queue for white goods at Argos? That’s an immediately resonant snapshot, I reckon. An asphyxiated badger? A personal injury lawyer in a Porsche which has a humorous sign in the back window saying ‘My Other Car’s A Porsche’? An elderly person being abused by a cretinous thug of a nurse in an old people’s home while the victim’s offspring, inured to irony, complain to the papers about such corporate ‘neglect’? This is the thing; Britain is diverse. It could be any and all of these and a thousand more besides.
For me, though, the thing which has become defining of the country right now is the magnificent hoop-de-doodle of the politically motivated show trial, each one costing untold millions and millions of pounds and each one accompanied by a howled demand for some sort of retribution from the absolutist metropolitan elite, while the filth are shown carrying out those black plastic bags at dawn (the cameras always handily present) — and then, later, sometimes a hell of a lot later, a jury comprised of ordinary people thinking about the whole thing long and hard and almost always deciding to acquit.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in