Simon Schama's diary: The British divide? Proms vs 'Am I bovvered'

‘Wider still and wider, may thy bounds be set,’ the ecstatic throng sang at the Last Night of the Proms. They were partying like it was 1902, even though it seemed like the moral territory occupied by hope (not to mention glory) was growing narrower. Perhaps it has been ever thus, but it seems apparent that there are two versions of Britain on offer right now: Britannia Promlandia and Tate Britain, as in Catherine Tate: the commonwealth of ‘Am I Bovvered?’

Promlandia’s celebrations were cued up this time by David Cameron’s St Petersburg impersonation of Hugh Grant, schoolboyishly ticking off all things Bright and British — footie, Shakespeare and, er, One Direction. It is a feelgood Albion, perpetually basking in Olympic summer. In Promlandia, the transatlantic relationship is forever special, the conductor (Marin Alsop) leading the orchestra in the hymn of imperial expansiveness and the soprano belting it out both unproblematically American.