“In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman, and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse-racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true, that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention while ‘God Save the King’ was played than of stealing from the poor-box.”— George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn (1941) Orwell was pointing out a type of person who sneers at their own country as if that makes them clever. Not because they’ve thought deeply about anything, but because they think mockery itself is a mark of superiority. The tone of it hasn’t changed. The same kind of people are still here. The same smirk. The same false performance of being “above” England. You see it across media, universities, arts, politics - this little ritual of laughing at everything English: the history, the songs, the traditions, the parades, the accents, the villages, the old ways of doing things. As if scorn is the height of sophistication. Meanwhile the ordinary Englishman hasn’t changed. He doesn’t make a spectacle of loyalty, but it’s there - in how he speaks about home, in how he looks after his own, in how he stands when something needs to be stood for. It’s quiet, steady, and real. The divide Orwell talks about is still obvious: There are those who feel duty and belonging. And there are those who think they are above both. The first group doesn’t need to explain itself
