Spectator's Journal: Britain Rebranded
Kimball, Roger
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL by Roger Kimball ritain a English.... Now we want to promote EngWhat's past is passe in Tony Blair's Little England. lishness, and St. George seemed the ideal figurehead. We...
...Such sentimentality is not a harmless phenomenon...
...First, England is to be demotcapacity, is incalculable...
...In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that if despotism were to establish itself in modern democratic nations, it would assume a different character from the tyrannies of other regimes...
...This was seen last summer in the nauseating efflorescence of Dianomania...
...Who says bit, too, since St...
...Housed in a silver balloon-like plastic structure reminiscent of the Michelin man, this pathetic effort at high-tech futurism should have been called "Amateurhouse::uk...
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...George hailed from Asia that reminded me of the other George, we must not let in daylight upon magic...
...The Prime Min- seem like an innocuous bit of national...
...Address: The American Spectator, P.O...
...What it rassed to be English...
...But they proceed from a similarly 68 July 1998 • The American Spectator high-handed attitude towards tradition and historical truth...
...It English Tourist Board had decided to make England" with "new music and even was a sexy song, so we had to tone it down," St...
...And an eminently multicultural It was reading about poor St...
...I thought of Bagehot the day Considering the resurgent tribalism Think about this for a moment...
...T aken separately, the various efforts to rebrand Britain seem almost trivial...
...only then can it be invested with Thompson, the papers explained, had The same day that I read about the some appropriate totems to boost its self-just finished entertaining the Queen, Tony Queen sharing a joke with Julie Thomp- esteem...
...Not that Tony Blair had a monopoly on bogusness in this case: Tory leader William Hague was quick to assure reporters that "the whole nation is deeply concerned about Deirdre, Conservatives as much as everyone else...
...Sir Elton John...
...And think about lish Constitution, Bagehot observed that involves is a transformation of Britain's what promoting "Englishness" means in "the use of the Queen, in a dignified entire heritage into fodder for a hip corn- this context...
...People have been embarrassed to be novel...
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...The campaign to rebrand Britain requires that the country's past be held in perpetual hostage to the propaganda requirements of the moment...
...Patrick's Day is for the Irish...
...Democratic despotism, he wrote, would "be more extensive and more mild...
...According trols the future...
...Can something distinctly creepy about this lat- remarked that "who controls the past con-one still speak of Great Britain...
...Is it important that Admiralty Arch, a military headquarters in World War II, is being used as a shelter for the homeless...
...gotten...
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...How about in an mercial makeover.It is curious that few peo- ed to a kind of theme-park tourist attracundignified capacity...
...Minor, not England...
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...One corollary of the effort to rebrand Britain is the higher fatuousness of Blair apparatchiks like Chris Smith, the Minister of Culture, who was quoted in the (London) Spectator a few weeks ago assenting to the proposition that "Bob Dylan is as valid as Keats...
...The rebranding of Britain is part of this phenomenon: an effort at repackaging that depends on altering if not obliterating the original contents of the package...
...And note, finally, the sleight-ofBlair, and other dignitaries assembled at son, the papers carried the news that the hand involved in fusing "all that's great in the Palace with a song called "Damon...
...The machinations of the to a spokesman for the Tourist Board, "up English Tourist Board may not be as omiROGER KIMBALL is managing editor of the until now, St...
...The phrase est exercise in public relations...
...it is even worse that the occupant turns out to be an intellectual enemy of culture...
...In 1984 Orwell famously It is a peculiar moment for Britain...
...That the police will now wear uniforms modeled on sports wear...
...Everything is image, polls, marketing, focus groups...
...Tony Blair's collusion in the process is no doubt one reason he is so often found grinning...
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...it would degrade men without tormenting them...
...Like President Clinton, whom he has obviously studied carefully, Tony Blair is a difficult man to pin down...
...And few modes of robbery are more undetectable than sentimental trivialization...
...George seemed the ideal figurehead...
...At one point I briefly sim- the latest casualty—I mean beneficiary— Purcell, Newton, the development of comulate an orgasm, although I was too embar- of rebranding...
...But in fact there was George Orwell...
...At the same time, even his most conservative gestures work to undermine the ideas and institutions they ostensibly support...
...It is part of what makes him such a brilliant politician...
...Few methods of degradation are more effective than robbing a people of its lifeline to its own past...
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...Phone: 703-243-3733, ext...
...Does abeth "sharing a joke" at Buckingham land and Wales (though perhaps not in that follow...
...Palace with a 21-year-old pink-haired rock Ulster), "rebranding" may turn out to dou- Who said anything about being embarsinger called Julie Thompson...
...He owes his office partly to a Labour Party that his policies have done much to betray...
...We want to attach him to all that's great in England, from our heritage W alter Bagehot and George "Cool Britannia" has made it back to the and history to new music and even films, Orwell were much on my States, but few people here know about and make St...
...Such spiritual larceny is finally what the rebranding of Britain is all about...
...People that the papers were emblazoned with (alias "nationalism") that Tony Blair's gov- have neglected St...
...Julie Thompson...
...Surely it's a small matter that the venerable Horse Guards Parade is the site of "Powerhouse::uk," an exhibition meant to tout British technological and commercial prowess...
...Of course, despotism comes in soft, cuddly versions as well as the more familiar brutal variety (though the alacrity with which one can transform itself into the other makes the distinction an unconsoling one...
...Does it really matter that the tailfins of British Airways planes are now festooned with designs more appropriate to a Middle Eastern bazaar...
...You know: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Thompson said...
...this spring...
...George's Day as big for us as mind when I visited London the "rebranding" of Britain yet...
...George has been a bit for- nous as those Orwell described in his New Criterion...
...At first blush, this might mon law, Wellington, Queen Victoria and rassed to do it this time...
...In The Eng- ble as a synonym for "disbanding...
...ple seem worried about this...
...George, ergo they have the now-notorious picture of Queen Eliz- emment seems to be encouraging in Scot- been embarrassed to be English...
...It is bad enough that the Blair government requires an Orwellian title like "Minister of Culture...
...Another corollary of the campaign to rebrand Britain is a new susceptibility to mass sentimentality...
...George, the patron saint of England, films...
...Tony Blair understands this perfectly...
...What matters is not any particular event or outrage but the pattern they form...
...George front of the stage with a great grin...
...ister, nevertheless, "was cool and sat at the uplift...
...The American Spectator • July 1998 69...
...If it is not itself despotic, its addiction to counterfeit emotion makes it eminently susceptible to despotic manipulation...
...tion...
...Of course, each of these assaults on convention is small in itself, but dissolution as well as divinity is in the details...
...It was seen in less hysterical but no less preposterous form in April when Deirdre Rachid, the fictional character from the soap opera "Coronation Street," was wrongly jailed and her plight elicited a huge public outcry, including a call from io Downing Street that she be released...
Vol. 31 • July 1998 • No. 7
