Apologies for the lack of blogging...

Have been quiet of late, owing to a very demanding project at work (not nice) and being engrossed in Wolf Hall (delightful).

The time has not been wasted, however, for Wolf Hall has set me thinking. For those of you who haven't read it (and I recommend you rush out and buy it if you haven't!) don't worry I won't give away the plot. However, I can say it is set at the court of Henry VIII, which was one of the most important times for England, and the seeds of England's eventual harnessing under the UK yoke were all sown at this time. I shall return to this theme shortly, particularly to illustrate how we English often celebrate the wrong heroes.

What's true of the EU, is true of the UK, only more so...

Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Harwich and Clacton and one of the most thoughtful politicans of our age, is submitting a Private Members Bill on an 'in or out' referendum regarding the UK's membership of the EU. It is an important bill, that deserves to be widely publicised and I urge you to go to his page and send it on to your friends or on facebook, twitter, blogs etc.
I'm afraid, however, that Douglas isn't really taking things to their logical conclusion. Every argument that can be made against the UK being a member of the EU (loss of sovereignty, financial cost, loss of an independent voice in the world, a lack of democracy) is equally true of England's membership of the UK.

The English People...

This blog deplores racism and does not advocate an ethnocentric view of citizenship. It is true, that once nationality was inherently bound with the concept of ethnicity, and in many places still is, as shown by the Balkan Conflicts in general, the Kosovo situation in particular, the situations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the tensions in Iraq.
The violence and ethnic cleansings in these areas, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pogroms throughout history all show the dangers and indeed reprehensibility of identifying nationhood too closely with ethnicity. The Second World War and the holocaust in particular gave Nationalism a dirty name, by association with belligerence, right-wing dogma, and genocide.