Not a patriot

It's trendy these days to back patriotism and nationalism. Meaning being proud of your country, overlooking its faults and shortcomings, and regarding other countries as second-rate.

Well, I'm not joining the trend. I'm not at all proud of my country, I'm well aware of all its faults and shortcomings, and I think there are plenty of countries that are doing better than ours.

What's to be proud of? A failing economy? Collapsing public services? Widespread misogyny and trolling? Rampant racism? It's not a country to be proud of but one to be embarrassed by.

I was last proud of my country probably in the 1970s, when there was a definite sense of a society that looked after its most vulnerable citizens and wanted everyone to have a satisfying life. I grew up at a time when there were no tuition fees, unemployment benefit was generous, and salaries and working conditions were much better than they are now.

It's just embarrassing when the government flaunts union jacks at its news conferences. Or when people wear union jack tee shirts. Or when football fans wave the St George's flag, the flag of England. Are they really proud of their country? It's hard to believe.

But it's awkward when I happen to live in a country I'm not in any way proud of. I tend to sidestep any conversation that turns to patriotism unless I know the person shares my own views. It could turn nasty.

Not a patriot

I'm not a patriot. By that I mean I'm not going to defend my country to the last and make out that everything it is or does is wonderful. That's just idiotic. Britain does some things well and does other things very badly.

To gloss over the failures and pretend they don't exist, and to magnify the successes even if they're simply the basics of a properly-run country, seems to me a cock-eyed way of looking at things.

But don't misunderstand me. When I say I'm not a patriot, that doesn't mean I slag off Britain and how it's run at every opportunity. It just means I take a realistic view of my country, with all its faults, and I don't mindlessly defend it like some blinkered fanatic.

When I say I'm not patriotic, what that means is:

• I couldn't care less about the union jack
• I couldn't care less about the national anthem
• I'm not distraught if Britain doesn't win some big sports event
• I don't wildly exaggerate Britain's achievements
• I'm not at all proud of my country
• I don't dismiss all other countries as inferior
• I don't think the British are all fine, upstanding, law-abiding citizens
• I don't believe the British have some unique cultural or spiritual quality
• I don't believe Britain is the "cradle of democracy"
• I don't see what's so special about the "village pub"

There's nothing wonderful about this very average country.  Alongside those with dazzling talents and abilities, there are many more with modest skills who're simply going through the motions till retirement - that is, if they can even afford to retire, when the state pension is so scandalously low*.

Not so much a wonderful country as a country staggering on chaotically from day to day.

* The basic state pension is £179.60 ($243.91) a week.

Flag mania

National flags seem to divide people quite dramatically. Some people love them and display them at every opportunity to show how much they love their country. Others loathe them and find their display irritating and unnecessary. Others are simply indifferent to them.

The British government has taken to displaying the union flag at every media briefing. They're also stipulating that every government office must fly the union flag not just on special occasions but every day of the year.

One Tory MP has even criticised the BBC's Annual Report for not including the union flag and said the flag should appear several times. Other Tory MPs have suggested the BBC is ashamed of its British links.

It seems shocking to me that there's so much fuss over the national flag when other important issues like poverty and homelessness never get the attention they deserve.

Quite honestly I don't understand why the union flag needs to be publicly displayed at all. If you're patriotic and proud of your country, isn't that enough? Why the need for flags?

And it's beyond ridiculous when people declare that if you don't like flying the flag then you're unpatriotic or even some kind of traitor to your native land.

I've no objection to flags in general. If people want to fly a gay pride flag or a Thank You NHS flag or a Green Party flag, good luck to them. They may ruffle a few feathers but they don't arouse the violent tribal passions the union flag is now burdened with.

Incidentally, the union jack isn't even recognised in law as the national flag. It has become so purely through custom and practice. Unfortunately custom and practice has also led to a jingoistic intolerance of flag sceptics like myself.

Marmite and sponge cake

As I've probably said before, I don't feel at all "British" and I don't understand those who do. The word means such totally different things to different people, I'm not even sure what I'd be identifying with.

One journalist suggests it means Wimbledon, the Shipping Forecast, Marmite, Shakespeare, Royal Weddings and Mary Berry's Victoria sponge. Goodness knows why he picked that particular combination. In any case, I have no interest in any of those things except Marmite. So does that mean I'm disgracefully un-British?

None of the things I'm actually interested in - like fiction, coffee, music, art, foreign food, ceramics - are exclusively British but come from all over the world. Which surely makes me Global or International rather than British.

Neither do I feel British in the sense that Britain is better than any other nation. That's an absurd idea. Every nation has its virtues and vices, Britain included. How can the country of rampant porn, horrendous online abuse, widespread poverty and soaring personal debt be better than any other country?

If feeling British means defending all those wonderful traditions foreigners are undermining with their weird primitive beliefs, then obviously I don't subscribe to that idea either.

Or we're expected to feel fervently British if someone British has excelled at something. When Team GB did so brilliantly at the Olympics, we were told we should be "proud of ourselves", as if I was personally responsible for such prowess. Er no, it had nothing whatever to do with me. They just happen to have similar passports.

The fact is I have a British passport only because I was born in Britain. Beyond that arbitrary accident of birth, "British" means nothing but a confusing bundle of quaint and irrelevant stereotypes.

British? Thanks, but no thanks.