The genuinely popular culture of England is something that goes on beneath the surface, unofficially and more or less frowned on by the authorities. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening. As a positive emotion it is stronger in the middle class than in the upper class – the cheap public schools, for instance, are more given to patriotic demonstrations than the expensive ones – but the number of definitely treacherous rich men, the Laval-Quisling type, is probably very small. They are not as musical as the Germans or Italians, painting and sculpture have never flourished in England as they have in France.

The Lion and the Unicorn - Penguin Books UK

What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. Orwell's vignettes of Englishness are a delight and his list of policies for a socialist democracy worthy of debate.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.

The Lion and the Unicorn - George Orwell - Google Books The Lion and the Unicorn - George Orwell - Google Books

The spirit of this attempt to reclaim Englishness for the left was summed up in Lindsay’s ringing declaration that “Communism is English”. What was it that at every decisive moment made every British statesman do the wrong thing with so unerring an instinct? It is very rare to meet a foreigner, other than an American, who can distinguish between English and Scots or even English and Irish.

We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. Without a socialist government to guide the country at its hour of supreme crisis, Britain may not have the strength it needs to consign Hitler and his armies to the dustbin of history. As people to live under, and looking at them merely from a liberal, negative standpoint, the British ruling class had their points. Decades before Hitler was ever heard of, the word ‘Prussian’ had much the same significance in England as ‘Nazi’ has today.