Who do we think we are

1
Who do we think we are?

• Rule Britannia, Cool Britannia, or Britannia plc?
• Alan Hudson
• Director of China Programmes
• Oxford University Department for Continuing
  Education

2

• Britain is a nation of long shadows on county
  cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green
  suburbs, dog lovers and as George Orwell said
  old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the
  morning mist.
• John Major, former Prime Minister

3

• Being British is about singing Karaoke in bars,
  eating Chinese noodles and Japanese sushi,
  drinking French wine, wearing Prada and Nike,
  dancing to Italian house music, listening to
  Cher, using an Apple Mac, holidaying in Spain.
  Shepherds pie and going on holiday to Hastings
  went out about 50 years ago and the only people
  youll see wearing a Union Jack are French movie
  stars or Kate Moss.
• Malcolm McLaren, pop impresario

4

• Major v McClaren
• The past v The immediate
• Pastoral v Technological
• National v Global
• Rooted v Contingent

5

• McClaren presents, and celebrates a much more
  transient or fragile sense of identity. But is
  it a desirable image rather than a lived
  experience?
• The fragility is represented by the English
  football team being more of a source of national
  identity than the British monarchy.
• THIS IS A DISCUSSION BORN OUT OF UNCERTAINTY!

6

• Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a
  role
• US Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, 1962

7

• The uncertainty begins at the end of the
  nineteenth century
• the meaning of Empire/the monarchy
• global power/national efficiency
• the nature of decline

8
The British Disease

• 1899 1914Boer War National Efficiency
• 1940 1945Dunkirk, Singapore Lend Lease
• 1968 1979The Break up of Britain The British
  Disease
• 1997 Beyond Decline

9

• The objective of Britain is negotiated through
  the playing out of inherited capital by which I
  mean the subjective allegiance to the
  arrangements of the dominant past thus
• social arrangements are taken to be natural
  characteristics
• the past becomes more and more important
  culminating in the continual revisiting of World
  War Two

10

• My conversation with a French fish seller.
• What is one British person (Brit) a gentleman!
• What is one Frenchman a good guy!
• What are two Brits together a great nation!
• And two Frenchmen? Anarchy!

11

• The rational kernel is continuity and the
  historical legitimacy of institutions.
• France United Kingdom
• Five Republics Head of State 1066
• Two Monarchies 12th Century Common Law
• Two Empires 13th Century Legislature
• 2 x state collapse A forgotten revolution
• The debate is shaped by Britains experience as
  the first successful nation state.

12

• Compare with
• Germany (late development) lack of political
  legitimacy.
• USA (Civil War) the continual redefinition of
  what it is to be an American
• THE PAST IS NO LONGER ADEQUATE
• Between the death of Churchill in January 1965
  and the funeral of Diana in September 1997.

13

• The concept of Britishness, or Frenchness, or
  Americanness is not that useful because everyone
  has different notions. The cliches the English
  are reserved, the Scots are mean and the Welsh
  can sing are very dubious generalisations. The
  debate about Britishness is promoted by the
  extent of our post-war decline. We are no longer
  kept together by the need to fight wars, we are
  no longer all Protestants and we do not have the
  self-interest of belonging to a massive global
  empire.
• Linda Colley, historian

14

• I think Britishness has died off in my lifetime
  and nothing has replaced it. When I was a child,
  it was Winston Churchill, beefeaters and lots of
  pink on the globe. Personally, Im a Londoner
  living in Europe.
• Jon Snow, broadcaster

15

• I want this country to be nothing less than the
  model 21st century nation, a beacon to the
  worldwe can be the best the best place to live,
  to bring up children, to lead a fulfilled life,
  to grow oldWe have a responsibility to be a
  government of high ideals and hard
  choicesremembered for all timeone of the great,
  radical reforming governments of our historyOur
  goalto make Britain the best educated and most
  skilled country in the worldthere is no place
  for militant trade unionism or uncaring
  management today.
• Tony Blair at the 1997 Labour Party conference
• The Priorities for the first incoming Labour
  government 1997
• Education, Education, Education
• The priorities for the 2nd Labour government
• Delivery, Delivery, Delivery

16

• 4. Giddens The Third Way
• (The third way programme)
• The radical centre
• The new democratic state (the state without
  enemies)
• Active civil society
• The democratic family
• The new mixed economy
• Equality as inclusion
• Positive welfare
• The social investment state
• The cosmopolitan nation
• Cosmopolitan democracy
• Risk, mistrust and disassociation

17

• The British Disease
• HARD (ECONOMIC/POLITICAL)
• Barnett
  Nairn/Anderson/AES
• RIGHT
  LEFT
• Wiener
  Thompson/Samuel
• SOFT (CULTURAL)
• 
  

Cultural Economy ?
18

• Beyond Left Right (Tony Giddens)
• The traditionalists The modernisers
• 1. The industrial
• working class.
• The Countryside
• Alliance
• The professions
• 4. cosmopolitan, metropolitan,
  symbolic analysts

19

• Where is Middle England and what is there to
  identify with in Cool Britannia?

20

• Implicit in what, then, has become as much an
• ideological commitment as a sociological
• phenomenon is the assumption that through
• mass consumption people are effortlessly
• incorporated into a society where almost
• everyone can identify with the middle class
• by virtue of his or her access to a free market
  of
• goods.
• Lizabeth Cohen in The Power of Culture, 1993
• The Language of consumption replaces the
• language of participation

21

State a.
Government b.
Service Provider
Mediating
Institutions a. Trade Unions
b. Media think Churches
tanks lobbyists
Social Movements focus
groups
MARKET
The people a.
Citizen
b. Consumer
22

• Who is in and who is out?
• The elites
• The conceptualisation of the working class
• Middle England
• Multiculturalism, diversity and citizenship
• Citizenship, consumption and participation
• Englishness/Scottishness/Britishness/ Europe
• Town v Country v Suburb
• London Global City
• Cool Britannia v The Heritage Industry
• Style v Substance