National identity is a curious thing. In his very long speech earlier this week, Rishi Sunak pulled on ideas of identity as his magnet for votes. I suppose that is easier than standing on your record in office. He talked about British values such as fair play. This is an odd value.
For a start, the idea of British identity is tough to stand up, such is the splintering and strength of regional senses of self. I’ve yet to meet a Scouser, for instance, who didn’t describe themselves as being from Liverpool first, then England, then perhaps Britain, or sometimes Ireland.
And while Sunak might have been keen on playing down national identities in a post-devolution world, the reality tells its own story. In Scotland, social attitude studies frequently put the percentage of people who identity first as Scottish rather than British at around 60%.
Fair play, then, always feels more inherently English in bearing, something grown out of cricket and village greens and morris dancing. But it’s a loaded cliché, like claiming French identity is a striped jumper and a beret with a load of onions round the neck.
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As ideas of identity remain in flux, it’s easy to see why things of permanence, like flags and statues, become much more important and the thing to really cleave to. Symbols as status, with all weight and importance suddenly invested in them.
This makes the sale of the Royal Mail to an overseas investor odder. There are few more clearly identifiably British symbols, right across the home nations, and internationally, than a red post box. Red phone boxes are increasingly rare, Mini Coopers were sold to BMW nearly 30 years ago and the BBC is hard to define. So, it’s left to that unassuming static box.
