Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Ten core values of the British identity

Today another YouGov poll is published in the Daily Telegraph. I cannot remember being so happy to read a set of results. There have been times in the past 10 years when I felt I was drifting away from my nation; that it was adopting a set of values that I could not share. I have been sickened by spin (a euphemism for lies) and political correctness (a social requirement to tell lies). I have been sickened by the hostility of our Establishment to Britain's culture and values. Our leaders, it seems, would back anybody against us. Most of my fellow-countrymen are apolitical. They get on with their lives without worrying about such things. So my family and friends could not understand my concerns and I thought that my view of what it means to be British was going out of fashion.

Today's poll shows that I was wrong. The "ten core values" listed by the Telegraph today - based on the poll - are mine. It took terrorist attacks to make us think about the issue; to politicise us enough to wonder - as I have been wondering for a decade - what it is that really matters to us. It has taken bombs and death to make us consider what "non-negotiable values" we expect our immigrants to subscribe to.

If you compare the Telegraph leader today with the very first entry in this blog, you might wonder why I am worried enough to spend time every day posting my thoughts here about freedom, civil liberties and Britishness.

It may yet prove that the terrorists who seek to divide us have brought us together. I hope so.

Telegraph | Opinion | Ten core values of the British identity

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I missed the opinion poll behind this - do you have a reference for it?

Tom Paine said...

Sure, it's at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/nbrit27.xml

Anonymous said...

Thanks. It's interesting stuff.