07 February 2011

Assimilation depends on a shared sense of national pride

.... If we radiate no sense of pride, no community of identity, we make it much harder for settlers to want to belong. If we deride and traduce the concept of patriotism, if we teach that the nation-state is finished, if we affect to believe that British history was a hateful chronicle of racism and exploitation, if we insist that we’re all Europeans now, we can hardly be surprised if people – whether long-settled or the children of immigrants – begin to cast around for alternative identities.

This point shouldn’t need to be made. Yet, unbelievably, David Cameron’s assertion of national solidarity has drawn attacks from Labour and the Left-wing press as “racist”. [telegraph.co.uk] Read more