Perhaps we could have our children pledge allegiance to a national motto. So thick and fast tumble the ideas about Britishness from the Government that the ridiculous no longer seems impossible. For the very debate about what it means to be a British citizen, long a particular passion of Gordon Brown, brutally illustrates the ever-decreasing circle that new Labour has become. The idea of a national motto has already attracted derision on a glorious scale-and there’s nothing more British than the refusal to be defined. Times readers chose as their national motto: No motto please, we’ re British.
Undaunted, here comes the Government with another one: a review of citizenship, which suggests that schoolchildren be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. It would be hard to think of something more profoundly undemocratic, less aligned to Mr. Brown’s supposed belief in meritocracy and enabling all children to achieve their full potential. Today you will hear the Chancellor profess the Government’s continuing commitment to the abolition of child poverty, encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweaks the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities.
You do not need to ask how this vision of Britain can sit easily alongside a proposal to ask kids to pledge allegiance to the Queen before leaving school: it cannot. The one looks up towards an equal society, everyone rewarded according to merit and not the lottery of birth; the other bends its knee in obeisance to inherited privilege and an undemocratic social and political system. In Mr. Brown’s view of the world, as I thought I understood it, an oath of allegiance from children to the Queen ought to be anathema, grotesque, off the scale, not even worth considering.
Why then, could No 10 not dismiss it out of hand yesterday Asked repeatedly at the morning briefing with journalists whether the Prime Minister supported the proposal, his spokesman hedged his bets. Mr. Brown welcomed the publication of the report; he thinks the themes are important; he hopes it will launch a debate; he is very interested in the theme of Britishness. But no view as to the suitability of the oath. It is baffling in the extreme. Does this Prime Minister believe in nothing, then A number of things need to be unpicked here. First, to give him due credit, the report from the former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith contains much more than the oath of allegiance. That is but "a possibility that’s raised". The oath forms a tiny part of a detailed report about what British citizenship means, what it ought to mean and how to strengthen it.
It is a serious debate that Mr. Brown is keen to foster about changing the categories of British citizenship, and defining what they mean. But it is in him that the central problem resides: the Prime Minister himself is uncertain what Britishness is, while insisting we should all be wedded to the concept. No wonder there is a problem over what a motto, or an oath of allegiance, should contain. Britain is a set of laws and ancient institutions— monarchy, Parliament, statutes, arguably today EU law as well. An oath of allegiance naturally tends toward these.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In its younger and bolder days, new Labour used to argue that the traditional version of Britain is outdated. When Labour leaders began debating Britishness in the 1990s, they argued that the institutions in which a sense of Britain is now vested, or should be vested, are those such as the NHS or even the BBC, allied with values of civic participation, all embodying notions of fairness, equality and modernity absent in the traditional institutions. Gordon Brown himself wrote at length about Britishness in The Times in January 2000: "The p British sense of fair play and duty, together embodied in the ideal of a vibrant civic society, is best expressed today in a uniquely British institution— the institution that for the British people best reflects their Britishness—our National Health Service."
An oath of allegiance to the NHS Ah, those were the days. They really thought they could do it; change the very notion of what it meant to be British. Today, ten years on, they hesitatingly propose an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Could there be a more perfect illustration of the vanquished hopes and aspirations of new Labour Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair. Ah, but I see there is to be a national day as well, "introduced to coincide with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee—which would provide an annual focus for our national narrative". A narrative; a national day, glorifying the monarchy and sport Yuck. I think I might settle for a national motto after all.
According to the author, the central problem of the oath of allegiance or a national motto towards Britishness is ______.
A．the allegiance toward the ancient British institutions
B．how to implement the National Health Service
C．how to define Britishness
D．the British sense of fair play and duty
