G
goinghome
Guest
"...The debate about Englishness draws in many of these issues. ippr and Our Kingdom have joined forces to hold monthly discussions debating the relationships between how we are governed and matters of policy. The first of these debated Englishness, with contributions from John Denham and Roger Scruton. For Scruton, England is essentially a nation defined by place, rather than blood, which helps to explain the language of enchantment and 'home' so often employed in evocations of Englishness...
...Both got me thinking about the varieties of political Englishness at play in the current debate, inter alia: a northern Englishness calling for greater economic and political power for the great cities and counties of the North, to counter the clout of London in England's governance and allow the North to fashion its own future after the cuts in public spending take effect; a white working class Englishness that has different variants, North and South, expressing a blocked desire for cultural and political recognition and, at the margins, bleeding into a right-wing nationalism of the type fuelling the English Defence League; and a Twickenham Englishness, which is carried by a southern middle class constituency and which runs the gamut from a culturally confident, cosmopolitan expression of the values of that class through to a more defensive, older and sometimes xenophobic Englishness that finds political voice in support for anti-European politicians.
What I can't locate in this typology – which simply proves that it is inadequate – is the leftish, pluralist Englishness of people like John Denham or the more strident but not right-wing supporters of an English Parliament.
Views are welcome – but, for now, I'll let Ian Dury have the last word.
Frankie Howerd, Noël Coward and garden gnomes
Frankie Vaughan, Kenneth Horne, Sherlock Holmes
...
Nice bit of kipper and Jack the Ripper and Upton Park
Gracie, Cilla, Maxy Miller, Petula Clark
Winkles, Woodbines, Walnut Whips
Vera Lynn and Stafford Cripps
...
And every one could tell a different story
And show old England's glory something new." -
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...democracy+(openDemocracy)&utm_content=Twitter
...Both got me thinking about the varieties of political Englishness at play in the current debate, inter alia: a northern Englishness calling for greater economic and political power for the great cities and counties of the North, to counter the clout of London in England's governance and allow the North to fashion its own future after the cuts in public spending take effect; a white working class Englishness that has different variants, North and South, expressing a blocked desire for cultural and political recognition and, at the margins, bleeding into a right-wing nationalism of the type fuelling the English Defence League; and a Twickenham Englishness, which is carried by a southern middle class constituency and which runs the gamut from a culturally confident, cosmopolitan expression of the values of that class through to a more defensive, older and sometimes xenophobic Englishness that finds political voice in support for anti-European politicians.
What I can't locate in this typology – which simply proves that it is inadequate – is the leftish, pluralist Englishness of people like John Denham or the more strident but not right-wing supporters of an English Parliament.
Views are welcome – but, for now, I'll let Ian Dury have the last word.
Frankie Howerd, Noël Coward and garden gnomes
Frankie Vaughan, Kenneth Horne, Sherlock Holmes
...
Nice bit of kipper and Jack the Ripper and Upton Park
Gracie, Cilla, Maxy Miller, Petula Clark
Winkles, Woodbines, Walnut Whips
Vera Lynn and Stafford Cripps
...
And every one could tell a different story
And show old England's glory something new." -
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkin...democracy+(openDemocracy)&utm_content=Twitter
