Ruth Wishart: The reality of broken Britain can't be disguised by flag displays

They’ve also got a neat new take on how to stop folk whining about the Sovereign Support Grant. Just cut out the treasury altogether, and let The Royals hoover up the income from the Crown Estates. Any “leftover” profit can be forwarded to the Exchequer.

Campaigns are a bit of a thing with the BMS. They had one to fund a new portrait for the monarch’s 60th year on the throne, and they have plans to fundraise for a statue for next year’s platinum number. As they observe of their portrait in every home notion: “this would be an inexpensive way to bring patriotism into our homes and places of civic instruction.”

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“Places of Civic Instruction?”, you say. Hmm. Surely time to take the British citizenship test version four, the first question of which is the name of the last battle between Britain and France. This Euro scepticism goes back a fair old way. I failed the test, by the way. Hopeless at knowing who invented radar and got in a fankle with my Bayeux tapestry. But at least I know how to spell Mo Farah which is more than the test compiler does.

In truth the whole exam lacks what we might loosely call a multicultural element, with a series of questions on who leads the Church of England, who fought the Romans, and what genre the Canterbury Tales come under. (It also insists that Scottish banknotes are legal currency throughout the nations and regions.

News to many London bar staff and taxi drivers.) However Britain is apparently bang back in fashion. Usually preceded by two overworked and supremely inappropriate adjectives: global and great. You’re never quite sure whether the authors of this nonsense are trying to convince us or themselves.

A favourite is the upcoming “Great British Railway”. Great before its journey has even begun. Of course you couldn’t just call it British Rail, which would have been an unfortunate admission that rail privatisation had been a near total bourach. True, but unfortunate.

And let’s not forget that wheeze to have “the nation” take up the song composed by some bairns in Bradford before being gleefully appropriated by that towering cabinet intellect Gavin Williamson, who retains his place principally to make everyone else seem mildly intelligent by comparison.

Kash Singh, the founder of One Britain One Nation

Gav it was who urged all schoolchildren to sing “One Britain, One Nation” last Friday in joyous ignorance of the fact that there is no such nation as Britain, and that lots of the pupils in the non-English nations were on their hols.

ONE thing you can say in defence of this relentless campaign to make us all feel British is that its advocates are strangers to subtlety. From urging suppliers to slap Union flags on produce farmed in Scotland and Wales, to sticking same in the corner of every room from which UK ministers address the, ahem, nation, the push to homogeneity is as pointless as it is counter productive.

By the way, since many of these ministerial types have been Zooming from home, did anyone check with the partner and or weans whether they minded a dirty great flag as the interior décor of choice? I know I had a Lion Rampant up in the telly room for the Euros – but at least that was only for a week or so. As usual.

In fairness, it’s not just the Tories who obsess about a non-existent nationhood. When Gordon Brown became PM he was keen that the lieges shouldn’t view him as some kind of tartan upstart. He gave a whole speech about why Britain was the biz.

And I quote: “For years we didn’t think we needed to debate or even think in depth about what it was to be a British citizen. But I think more and more people are recognising not just how important their national identity is to them but how important it is to our country. A strong sense of being British helps unite and unify us.”

There is more: “Indeed, when people are asked what they think is important about being British many say our institutions: from the monarchy and the national anthem to the Church of England, the BBC and our sports teams.”

Ah yes, our sports teams. Another whoopee idea just disinterred thanks to the current tournament, is the thought that since we have a GB Olympics team why not a British soccer team? You can so easily see how this would work, can you not? A hundred thousand Scots journeying to Wembley wrapped in the Union flag, carrying pictures of the monarch, and giving anyone who would listen a rousing chorus of “One Britain, One Nation”. What on earth could go wrong?

The thing is, an identity is something you feel, or you don’t. You can’t pour it into a little phial, turn it upside down, fill a syringe and stick it in everybody’s upper arm. There you go, gal, that’ll make you feel proper British.

The proportion of Scots who cite Britishness as their primary identity has fallen year on year, as the generation for whom the last world war had real personal significance dies off. In the last census of 2011 8% of Scots thought themselves British only, and only 18% as Scottish and British. Part of the reason for the widespread resistance to the concept of being British is that for way too long England and Britain were used interchangeably, both here and elsewhere in the world. England football fans a generation back would wave the Union flag rather than their own, and be genuinely perplexed as to why anyone would take exception.

The emergence of a distinct English identity is to be welcomed, though not the post Brexit bovver boy variety.

But for that background, it might have been easier to sell Britishness, rather as Norwegians and Swedes, once joined at the political hip, have no quibble with being collectively labelled Scandinavian.

READ MORE: One Britain One Nation: Nicola Sturgeon delivers scathing verdict

THERE remain problems with both imagery and imposed branding. Try as we might, it’s difficult to erase from the memory bank a picture of the current PM stuck mid zip wire, impotently waving a couple of Union flags. Try as we might, it’s difficult to see why Australians would queue to buy more expensive Scottish lamb from halfway round the globe. Can’t wait to hear how Johnson sells this idiocy to a Cop26 conference dedicated to a swift reduction in carbon footprints.

The fact is it’s not easy to see how anyone could feel a surge of pride in being British when the figure allegedly at the helm is B Johnson.

When we are hitched to a government which treats asylum seekers as criminals to be deported or outsourced. When it brazenly cuts funds to the world’s poorest, most desperate children. When it feels able to flout international laws and signed treaties.

I am personally shamed by all of that, I want nobody to think my own country had any hand in any of that.

As indeed we don’t; we are excluded from every crass decision made, but not alas, from the consequences of the UK government’s blunders.

I note the Westminster government would now, suddenly, prefer there was only one inquiry into dealing with the pandemic. I’ll just bet they would. But contracts for cronies was all their own work. As is the continuing guddle over travel advice and border controls.

You broke the stuff guys. You fix it.