Rebekah Brooks takes her place in a perfect picture of modern Britain

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.