Uniform Hatred

As up to date as ever, I thought I'd finally get round to ranting about the latest lunatic proposals from the government to promote 'Britishness'. I really don't know where this obsession with national identity has come from. Oh, I know that the likes of the Daily Mail like to tell us that 'multiculturalism' is diluting our 'Britishness', but that's utter bollocks. Multiculturalism has been around as long as I can remember - when I was growing up in the1970s we thought that the diversity of cultures we had in this country - living more or less in harmony - was something to be proud of. Tolerance was very highly rated in those days. Indeed, we even believed that we could learn something from eachother's cultures, thereby strengthening our own, British, culture. But getting back to the point, the government has got it into its head that pride in our military has something to do with regaining our supposedly lost 'Britishness'. Consequently, we now seem to have soldiers parading through the streets every five minutes, as we all give them thanks for simply doing the jobs they're paid to do. I'm a public servant. I work in an inner-city war zone. I'm frequently at risk (although I don't have the option of calling down air strikes on those threatening me). Strangely, nobody is giving me the freedom of the Borough or having receptions in my honour.

Even worse, we now have some Minister or other proposing that August Bank Holiday become some sort of celebration of 'Britishness', with local communities deciding how they might want to express their 'Britishness' - through military parades, no doubt. For fuck's sake, the last thing we bloody need is being told how to spend our Bank Holidays! The whole point of a Bank Holiday is that it is a day free of routine, when we do whatever we please. This is especially true of August Bank Holiday, as it is the last public holiday we get until Christmas. It also should mark the height of Summer. Both very good reasons for simply kicking back and enjoying the day - without 'events' or soldiers marching around. If the government wants a special 'Britishness' day, then create a new bloody Bank Holiday for it - we're already short of them compared to the rest of Europe. Hands off our Bank Holidays! And while I'm still ranting - what is it with this uniform fetish we seem to have these days? Going back to my childhood - we were rightly suspicious of anyone who had a thing for dressing up like that. Thanks to Hitler and the Cold War, everybody knew that the only people who liked uniforms enough to want people wearing them to be parading down the streets all the time, were either Fascists or Stalinists. Mulitculturalism was better than uniformity, we thought. You know something - we were right.