I don’t know about the rest of the world, but over here it’s got all ‘BRITISH’ crazy.
We’ve got the Jubilee at the moment, and the Olympics coming up. And believe you me, if the supermarkets can slap a Union Jack and BRITISH on anything, they are. What was a simple old lettuce a few months ago is now BRITISH LETTUCE.
It’s like that.
I don’t give a shit about the Olympics, to be honest. I don’t really know anyone who does. And the same went for the Jubilee, until tonight. I was watching the concert held in front of the Palace, and thinking to myself “This is the best they could do?”
And then it got to Macca coming on. And listening to Prince Charles speak a little bit about the Queen, I started to really listen. And it occurred to me that we’re truly at the end of an era, in a way. Or nearing the end. We used to be the BRITISH EMPIRE. At one point we pretty much ruled the world*.
Celebrating the monarchy and GREAT BRITAIN used to be a BIG thing over here. But over the years that has dwindled. Dodgy government, scandals in both politics and the royal family, terrorism and two gulf wars have made us Brits question what it really means to be BRITISH. We’ve become disenfranchised. Disenheartened.
And you know what? I never thought about it before, but it’s sad. Watching as ‘God Save The Queen’ played, and the fireworks went off, I got the distinct impression that we’ve lost pride for ourselves. Pride in our country. Pride in what we used to be. Pride in what we want our country to be.
Maybe we should have a better sense of ourselves. It called into question my own attitude as a Brit.
Am I proud of my country as it is today? No. Do I want to be? I never realised it before, but my answer to that is Yes. I so much want to be a proud Brit. It’s just so hard when the country is in the state is right now. I’m lower/working class at the moment, and I don’t feel as though the government is doing anything to help me and my family at the moment. The current government don’t want you to improve your station. They want the poor to stay poor and the rich to stay rich. We’ve gone back in time to the eighties.
Something has to change. People are really feeling it over here at the moment. I hope that it gets better.
Watching the Jubilee concert tonight, I got the feeling we’re witnessing the final chapter of GREAT BRITAIN. A celebration of something that used to be. It seems to be dying.
I hope there is change in the UK. A return to former glory. Get the country back on track, something to be proud of. It’s not going to happen by retail milking the BRITISH cow for all it’s worth. That’s just cashing in. Nothing more.
What I’m talking about is fixing what’s broken. And I mean the country as much as its spirit.
*Don’t quote me on that.
Tony Healey 