The American Spectator

Among the Intellectualoids

Plymouth Crock

By Hal G.P. Colebatch on 4.3.08 @ 12:07AM

(Page 2 of 2)

THE ATTACK ON Hawkins seems to be part of an attack on the whole concept of Britain's historic identity, on a par with the decision by authorities at Winchester to down-grade its associations with Alfred the Great. Eloise Appleby of the Winchester Tourist Board was quoted as saying: "King Alfred represents the past. His image is not forward-looking enough for today's cut-throat commercial market place. Winchester is a town with many creative artists and new buildings and Alfred doesn't tell the whole story."

In fact, many people came to Winchester precisely and solely because of its associations with Alfred, Arthur, and other figures of high and heroic chivalry and romance. That wouldn't do, so King Alfred's College, Winchester, adopted the colorless lackluster name "University College, Winchester," in 2004, later changed again to Winchester University.

The work proceeds apace: a recent survey of 1,400 British school-children indicated one third of them believed that Winston Churchill was a fictional character.

A few months earlier a poll of adults revealed that a quarter of those questioned also thought Churchill never existed. They believed he had more to do with the TV advert for Churchill insurance -- which features a nodding dog of the same name.

Previously, the BBC's Radio Times had claimed in a program note:

History may regard Winston Churchill as the architect of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, or the maker of xenophobic speeches, but tonight we consider him, in philanthropic old age, as Churchill the European.

This was reportedly written not by an office-boy from a sink-comprehensive school or printed at the dictation of the Gauleiter of an occupying enemy power, but by a professional journalist, Sue Gaisford.

There are countless other instances of similar things. In Malvern, Worcestershire, the Elgar Hall, named after Sir Edward Elgar, who composed the music of "Land of Hope and Glory," was renamed "New Space."

In 2004 the Anglican Bishop of Hulme, the Rt. Rev. Stephen Lowe, banned the hymn "I vow to thee, my country," in his diocese, claiming its popularity was a symptom of a dangerous increase in English nationalism which paralleled the rise of Nazism. The bishop claimed it was dangerous to suggest British culture was somehow superior.

It all points to something very odd happening in that aforementioned "rough island story." For the first time in nearly a thousand years, England is being run, at an important level, by people who hate it.

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