"If you’re going to issue a cultural call to arms, it helps to have an idea what 'our own culture' actually means."

"If you’re going to issue a cultural call to arms, it helps to have an idea what 'our own culture' actually means. Reform and the Conservatives only know what they are rejecting: Islam and Europe. As for Labour, when Lisa Nandy became culture secretary a year ago, she pledged to transform Britain into a 'self-confident' country, one where everyone can 'see themselves in the stories we tell.' On the question of what that national story is, however, she was tellingly silent. ...

"Our culture has been impoverished. There are many culprits here. Woke traduces hundreds of years of history as tainted with criminality, leading to swathes of our national story, in all its gore and glory, being lost to sight. ...

"When I asked a young Briton to summarise the dominant culture among his generation, he replied, 'an international version of American culture that can be found anywhere.' The Right demands that immigrants 'integrate' — and rightly so — but if we are not careful there will be nothing left to integrate into. ...

"[T]he cultural emergency is real. 2012 is an age ago. The Queen is dead and Bond is on gardening leave. Society has been further weakened by rancorous lunges for power by aggrieved minorities, whether ethnic, sexual or religious, and the furious reaction of their opponents. ...

"Tell the story of this country, warts and all. But tell it. Tell it and tell it again until we see ourselves in it."

~ Christopher de Bellaigue from his post 'Britain can’t tell its national story' [Q: Can we?]