Can I pledge allegiance to myself?

[matgb]

In the ongoing saga of "Lord Goldsmith is an arse", Jennie, having already covered it well, links today to Larry's Britishness Test, and, well, it amuse me muchly—I knew most of the quotes, and even knew many of the sources, but it's nice to see them all compiled. So, here we go, how British are you?

[Poll #1152920]
ETA: Gah! Forgot the ticky box for people to say they'd done it. That was really stupid. Ah well, sorry all. Question: I deliberately uncut it, good/bad? Does it work as a form of post?

Answers below the fold:

1. "betray my country"
2. "corrupt... corrupts"
3. "to the top"
4. "vicious"
5. "do the job"
6. "scoundrel"
7. "make up [for] lost time"
8. "trepan... power [and] tyranny"
9. "himself"
10. "incorrectly... wrong remedy"
11. "political dirty work"
12. "eat squirrels"
13. "trivial reasons"
14. "fascist regime"
15. "suppurating fuckstick"

I was in the Scouts, all the way through, I even nearly became a Scout leader before job commitments moved me out of the area (promotion donchaknow, ten years ago now). Theoretically, they don't let atheists in, but that rule is more known by its lack of enforcement.

Do your duty to God and The Queen. That's easy. Duty to god(s) is to remind people, regularly, that there's no such thing. Duty to the Queen? In my youth it was my duty to try to get rid of the pernicious outdated institution. More reserved, informed and gradualist me now considers it my duty to help her and her family be relieved of so many stupid rules and regulations, clarify the powers and update the system—if we're to be in a constitutional monarchy, I'd like it to be a functioning one, and as a monarchist I have little time for "royalists" who seem to want to worship the family—the family isn't relevent, the Crown is what matters.

Gordon was supposed to be ushering a new era of constitutional change, getting rid of the worst bits of St Tone. It said so in his off-the-record press briefings. Anyone see any evidence of it?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Cheers Mat, glad it aroused you.

Larry T.

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Gordon was supposed to be ushering a new era of constitutional change, getting rid of the worst bits of St Tone. It said so in his off-the-record press briefings. Anyone see any evidence of it?

I've refrained from saying anything about all this so far on anyone's LJ because it's making me so unbearably angry. It's not a Government recommendation or a Government policy. It's a recommendation in a report commissioned by Government - a fine, but important distinction - and if anything, Number 10 have been extremely lukewarm about the specific pledge of allegiance thing.

But, more importantly, the rest of the report is actually addressing some real, serious questions about cultural and national identity and social cohesion. It's attempting, even if it is sometimes in a clumsy way, to find areas of commonality in society to try and prevent things such as the Bradford riots and 7/7 happening. If you want to avoid draconian security measures and a climate of fear about immigrants, this is how you do it.

It's fine and dandy for bloggers to pat themselves on the back, sneer at such attempts, and see who can win the "I'm the most distrusting of the state" competition, but such questions of citizenship and cohesion are perfectly legitimate and well worth asking.

We're all good anti-monarchists round here, myself included, so to us, the idea of pledging allegiance to the Queen seems like a big joke. However, for the bulk of the population, including ethnic minorities, the monarchy is one of the only symbols of "Britishness" that people feel able to identify with and rally round. It's hardly surprising, therefore, that one of the ideas mooted in the report is a pledge to the monarch. And the flag's reclamation from the BNP and their ilk is long, long overdue. Baroness Kennedy may be right that the specific idea of a pledge would be "an empty gesture", and Clegg may be right that it would be "synthetic patriotism", but I think that the underlying gist - that schools need to find ways to help pupils to feel that they are British citizens - is important and right.

Ultimately, and at the risk of being melodramatic, pouring scorn on Labour's attempts under Brown - sincere attempts in my view - to get to grips with the question of citizenship carries a real risk. The left derided "In Place of Strife" in the late 60s, even though trade union reform was long overdue, and in the end, we got Thatcher's take on such "reform". I have real fears about how the multicultural question would be settled by a Cameron Government, for all his apparent liberalising instincts.

[monolithix.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, the ninjas will win.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Oh dear.

I'm spectacularly bad at remembering quotes of this kind, from elder statesmen and great thinkers of our times. The only one I know is the one about power corrupting. For the others, the urge to put in silly answers is amost overpowering.

So I'll just skip it and assume that I score very badly as a Brit!

[matgb]

Actually, I mostly concur and agree with you—I partially posted the poll to see how effective this sort of thing would work on LJ. But then messed up the ticky box &c, because I am a bit dim like that.

Both the specifically politics blogs I set up and then left were covered in the flag—I wanted to get the message across to those not on my notional "side" of the debate, not preach to the converted. Worked too, so much so that some blithering nationalists were still convinced right at the end that they agreed with me and I was on "their" side, even though I palpably wasn't.

Unity had the same idea when we set up the now-abandoned Liberty Central project—got lots of "feedback" complaining about the girl draped in the flag, mostly from people that were already completely onboard with what the site was trying to acheive.

I've always favoured reclamation over abandonement, and I sort-of agree on the need to address the issue.

Unfortunately I, despite hopes to the contrary, can't bring myself to trust Brown to do anything but try to keep the tabloids happy, and I've seen little movement on the whole "let's got back to the reform agenda" thing he did seem to be putting about.

Which brings me back to my ultimate position—without STV for elections, the Govt has to and can only really chase and appeal to the swing voters in the marginal seats, and everything they do is window dressing for those seats.

Meh—I is supposed to be working. Why is it that as soon as someone does the "I've got bloggers block" post their muse returns, normally when they;re supposed to be doing other things?

[matgb]

Absolutely.

[matgb]

Dude? It's not really a set of quotes that extol patriotism as a virtue ;-)

Have a look at monolithix's answers ;-)

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

My problem with it is not that if people want to do it they could, (and you may well be right that for many people Queenie is one of the only symbols of "Britishness" that seems relevant to them) or that the flag is reclaimed from the BNP (a very good idea).

My objection is that for many people it would be a totally empty gesture, something that they're doing because they've been told they have to.

For me part of Britishness is the idea that we specifically don't pledge allegiance to the country/flag/Queen unless we are in a position where it is done for historical reasons (Scouts) or rather more logical reasons (Swearing in of MPs when she- or her representative- is in the House.)

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

So by being an ignorant fool and failing to know them, I am in fact a good Brit? Aieeeeeeeeeee!

[monolithix.livejournal.com]

You may also be a good ninja. Only time will tell. Until we next meet in battle!

[spurious-logic.livejournal.com]

Would you mind if I post a link to this in my LJ? Most of my friends do UK historical re-enactment (Renaissance and Dickens London) and would have a blast going through these.

[matgb]

Heh; have you got style=mine swithched on again?

Sidebar: consider this permission to add me, quote me (link) & link to me.

Many many welcome, I like links.

It is of course a very silly set of quotes, but even so.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

You cannot force people to be loyal from the top down. The more you try to enforce social cohesion the more it will melt away like ice cream in the sun. What you have to do is create a society that people want to be involved in; then pride will arise all by itself.

We're all good anti-monarchists round here, myself included

Actually, we're not. Mat isn't. I'm not. But, you know, far be it from me to insist that you actually READ the post you're ranting about...

[(Anonymous)]

As a sneering self-back-patter I'll reply to this. Yes - it's important and right to find ways to help all people in society feel that they are British citizens. I don't dismiss all questions of social cohesion as a joke: I agree, these questions are well worth asking.

The trouble is that not all answers are good answers and, as you seem to acknowledge, this allegiance thing is a deeply cack-handed, illiberal, and, as I tried to point out, extremely unBritish attempt to tackle these issues. You think that because it is nevertheless a sincere attempt, we should give it the kid-glove treatment. I totally disagree.

Ill-thought through attempts to address serious matters can worsen those very problems they try to solve. As Chris Dillow (http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2008/03/an-oafs-oath.html) argues, this oath is not only fatuous nonsense, it could also be dangerously counter-productive and divisive.

I haven't read the report, maybe there's some excellent other stuff in there. But if so, perhaps you could direct some of your unbearable anger at whichever idiot decided to include the turd-cream in the chocolate-box.

Larry T

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I, despite hopes to the contrary, can't bring myself to trust Brown to do anything but try to keep the tabloids happy, and I've seen little movement on the whole "let's got back to the reform agenda" thing he did seem to be putting about.

Which brings me back to my ultimate position—without STV for elections, the Govt has to and can only really chase and appeal to the swing voters in the marginal seats, and everything they do is window dressing for those seats.

I don't think what he's doing on citizenship, or in the "Governance of Britain", is anything to do with the tabloids - that's all him.

I agree with you about STV though, and I've always believed in it for the reasons you set out, and others.

[frightened.livejournal.com]

I was in the Brownies. Shut up, I was young. Anyway. I can still recite the Brownie Guide Promise, old skool version: "I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen, to help other people, and to keep the Brownie Guide Law."

Being brought up by godless commies, I didn't mean a fucking word of it. Well, I suppose the "help other people" part, on a good day, being less solitary and misanthropic back at the age of seven. Just taught me sometimes you gotta lie through your teeth to get what you want. Not sure that was the purpose of that particular oath...

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Actually, disregard my previous comment. I came in tired and cranky last night. The last thing I need to do right now is get bolshy on the internet.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.

[matgb (blogger) (from livejournal.com)]

I agree.

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