This is not so much a petition as a harangue. I want to know who stole my identity, who stole my Britishness when I wasn’t looking? And by ‘Britishness ‘ I don’t mean the language or the culture, though I’ve studied Shakespeare and Dickens with the best of them, or the history or Christmas or the million meaningless trivialities that we seem to define ourselves by these days.
My ‘Britishness’ was embodied in the values that I grew up with, to care for the sick, the poor and the vulnerable, to ensure that justice was done for the poorest and meanest of us all, to exercise tolerance by giving everyone ‘the benefit of the doubt’ until they proved us wrong, and above all not to walk by on the other side of the road when someone needed help. Where has that identity gone? I look around and all I see is selfishness, intolerance, greed and hypocrisy and a nation hanging on to its purse strings in the face of desperate want, a nation that is turning in on itself and devouring its own entrails.
I love my country but I loved my people more. I was proud to be British not because of our empire, or our industrial history, our inventiveness or our wealth but because whenever I needed a helping hand, it was there, whenever I faltered along the way there was someone there guiding me onto the right path without judging me or turning their face against me. Above all I was grateful to the nation that enabled me to rise above poverty and ignorance, to give a better start in life to my children than my parents were able to give to me. I am grateful to the teachers who shed light on my ignorance, to the doctors and nurses who ensured that I grew up healthy and sound, to the social workers who helped me when things got too difficult, and to the strangers who showed charity in both word and deed.
I was born into poverty in 1950, three years before the birth of the Welfare State. I slept in winter with overcoats on the bed to keep me and my sisters warm, I remember a week of living on cornflakes because there was no money for food and I walked to school with cardboard in my shoes to keep my feet dry. But thanks to the Welfare State and the principle of ‘universality’ , which meant that everyone cared for everyone else, my children have never had to experience any of this though, if we allow this erosion of true ‘Britishness’ to continue, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren will.
My plea is to all of you true Britons, and most especially to those of my own generation who must have experienced, heard tales of , or suspected, their own parents’ poverty and who have most benefited from the welfare state. We are all the parents of the coming generations. Do not be cowed by the doctrine of Deficit, gulled into doubt and despair, believing the worst of everyone, fellow citizens and foreigners alike. Rise up and reclaim your identity, or do nothing and turn away, pretending that you don’t see the spectres of poverty and injustice standing at the shoulders of your grandchildren.
We, the British people deplore the theft of our identity and demand its return.
