Mr Brown seems to have no idea how most people actually go about being British. It isn't very British, to start with, to take oaths of allegiance: we have always assumed, usually quite rightly, that we are born into that. It isn't very British to fly the Union flag on public buildings all the time - we reserve that sort of thing for the Queen's birthday, and leave the permanent flag-flying to banana republics.
It isn't very British, either, to tell people how they must govern their consciences - as Mr Brown was trying to do on embryo experimentation, until even some of his supine ministers let him know that they wouldn't feel happy about the Frankenstein-style creation of half-men, half-animals.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Quote of the Day
Heffer gets almost everything wrong ("immigration~bad, Act of Settlement~good") in his morning rant in the Daily Telegraph; can't argue with this though:
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3 comments:
As Mark Devenport said, NI has been airbrushed from New Labour's patriotic plan. No surprise there: practically no business now flies the Union Jack in our Province because they don't want to offend the indigenous Irish. Sorry, but that's how I feel.
Tim
Tim,
Who are the "indigenous Irish"?
If you take the most accepted definition: "having originated in and being produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment",
then I'm most certainly also indigenous Irish and proud of it. Also very proud of my Britishness...but, and I know this probably will not tie in with what a lot of other N.Irish unionists may think, that Britishness is not determined or undermined by whatever flag my local government office or indeed "Education" Minister nay decide to fly.
I mentioned on Wednesday my reason swhy I think Brown "airbrushed" us (which he didn't actually, we were mentioned along with the other 3 countries)- it's got everything to do with internal Labour politics and his assessment of where the main danger to the Union (or to Labour's hegemony in Scotland and wales)lies. You could even argue that Unionists in NI should be pleased that our situation here is so settled that we don't even warrant a mention anymore;)
When I allude to the Indigenous Irish I mean the native Irish who lived in Ulster before we (the Ulster-Scots & English) were settled here. I refer to Irish nationalists in the broadest sense. I consider myself British first anyway.That's my view.
I'm a little cynical, indeed sceptical, regarding your second point. Who knows?
Tim
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