As part of its “English Question” week, the BBC has given its audience the chance to ask about England, Britain, patriotism, nationalism, national anthems, English tea, and much much, more.
“Why are all the home nations, except England, allowed to be patriotic?” asked one reader. To which Cambridge professor Michael Kenny replied:
“The complaint that the English are not allowed to be patriotic “flies in the face of a considerable body of evidence that a growing number of English people have, in the last two decades, begun to develop a more unabashed pride and interest in their own English identity – and not just when the World Cup comes around.”