The U.K. in Disarray

...But the people of England have taken everything that has happened in stride, generally responding with old-fashioned equanimity...

...Apparently the concept "nation," as applied to this country, has become controversial...

...Blunkett has ordered schools in England to begin including in their curriculums lessons intended to restore a sense of English national pride, while "welcoming other people's cultures...

...The Scots are passionately jealous of their distinctive heritage and have never completely surrendered their political identity to London...

...They were steadfast and trustworthy...

...But whatever the general public mood, the country and its leaders have to come to terms with a changed political structure that is bringing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland new self-governing powers and providing them with greater "national" identity...

...Besides dealing with regional matters, it can levy income taxes if it wishes, over and above those stipulated by Parliament in London, a power denied the Welsh...

...Better than a century ago, Prime Minister William Gladstone said, "If we can make arrangements under which Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and portions of England can deal with questions of local and special interest to themselves more efficiently than Parliament now can, that, I say, will be the attainment of a great national good...

...Gladstone may be proved right...

...A recent London Times headline asked plaintively, "Can Someone Please Tell Us Who We Are...

...Nevertheless, the Scottish National Party, with its goal of ultimate independence for Scotland, has never been able to challenge majority support among the Scots for remaining an integral part of the U.K...

...The government in London is aware of the anomalies devolution has created, and of the concern some feel that England has been downgraded...

...Fortitude bordering on the incomprehensible was a byword...

...But this would require even more profound constitutional changes than have already taken place and is not in the cards...

...They see the newly established Ulster Assembly (suspended indefinitely on luly 15) as a major step along that road...

...Still, there was some basis in reality for drawing such a picture, and there is no question that many English retain such characteristics...

...Despite the major efforts of the Irish Republic's Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, and his British counterpart, Tony Blair, leaders of the Catholic minority look forward to the day when the region can be incorporated into the adjoining domain of Dublin...

...Suggestions have been made here that legislation related solely to the English should be reviewed by a special committee consisting predominantly of English Members of Parliament...

...Although local leaders stress the importance of the Welsh language as a symbol of ethnic pride, and street signs in what once was a British principality are today written in Welsh as well as English, no more than 20 per cent of the people (some say as little as 5 per cent) speak or understand that ancient tongue...

...They did their duty...

...They were class-bound, hidebound and incapable of expressing emotions...

...The BBC executives responsible for those breathtaking decrees are already under fire for allegedly dumbing down what is supposed to be public service broadcasting...

...In addition, they have retained a venerable legal system that differs from others in the U. K. For many years, too, the British Parliament has respected a form of Scottish separateness by permitting the Scottish Office, an agency of the British government staffed mostly by Scots, to deal with key matters related specifically to Scotland...

...are not about to cut free and go their separate ways...

...The Union Jack still flies aloft on flagpoles in Scotland, Wales and Ulster...

...But no English figures play roles in the governing bodiesofthe other United Kingdom "nations...

...Yes, they are proud to be Welsh...

...In the referendum on devolution of power to a local elected body, only a small maj ority of the small minority who bothered to vote indicated they favored the establishment of a Welsh Assembly, even one empowered to deal only with such local issues as health care, education and transport...

...Secrstary of Education David Blunkett, an Englishman, says, "In England, we have tended to downplay our traditions and identity and our culture in a way that other people do not...

...The Guardian, the most pessimistic of London's five quality daily newspapers, has warned of the "end of British politics as we know it" with the new national assemblies challenging the authority of the central government...

...But leaders of the Protestant majority dominate the Assembly and, while taking great pride in being Ulster men and women, are determined that the region will remain British...

...Where do those developments leave the English, whose identity as a people was already under stress...

...Scotland is a different story...

...The non-English constituent parts of the U.K...

...In all three regions, there are nationalistic politicians who favor much looser ties with London, and a few of them want genuine statehood...

...or at least it would be a crisis if more than a comparatively small number of citizens here were troubled by the sudden transformation of the U.K...

...The news was ecstatically cheered by the crowd that had congregated in a field near Cardiff Bay ostensibly to celebrate Wales' regaining formal separate identity from the English...

...The British Army remains the British Army...

...And now, though there is a British Parliament, the English are reduced to being the only constituent nation of the United Kingdom without a governing body of their own to look after their particular interests...

...Instead of fragmenting the United Kingdom, political devolution may very well strengthen it by deepening its democratic governing processes...

...Queen Elizabeth continues to be recognized throughout the land as head of state and ceremonial monarch...

...In Wales, which has received a measure of self-government for the first time in 593 years, Plaid Cymru, the minority Welsh nationalist party, does not even hint at ultimate independence for the Welsh...

...Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is a Scotsman, former Prime Minister James Callaghan is Welsh...

...But the currentpopular image of the English is colored by raucous pop groups and soccer hooligans, by financial hanky-panky at some pension funds, and by the hysterically maudlin mourning over the death of Princess Di...

...But yes, they are also proud to be British, no matter what the BBC says...

...The seemingly self-mocking oxymoron provoked much bafflement and not a little outrage...

...A new BBC style book told them the word "British" should no longer be used in television and radio broadcasts to describe the people living in Britain...

...There is no more truth to all of that than to most national stereotypes...

...They were polite, unexcitable, reserved and had hot-water bottles instead of a sex life...

...In fact, the aforementioned soccer victory over Germany aroused far more excitement...

...Not for nothing has it been said that if you stand on any street corner in Wales and shout "Yes," 100 people you have never met will instinctively shout "No...

...Cassandras have arisen in the media to caution that it would be a mistake to underrate the emergence of separate political cultures in the United Kingdom...

...But the Parliament in London still reigns supreme on fundamental issues of state...

...into a kind of federalized state, something it has never been before...

...IN short, yesterday's portrait of the proper Victorian English can no longer be considered even close to accurate...

...Simply put, the United Kingdom is faced with an awesome crisis of identity...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...They are far outnumbered, however, by their compatriots who treasure their British identity...

...The gala concert to mark the opening of that Assembly was interrupted for an announcement that Manchester United, England's leading soccer squad, had scored a stunning victory over a team from Munich...

...As for Northern Ireland, its future as a political entity depends on the extent to which persisting Protestant-Catholic sectarian strife can be minimized...

...In recognition of that precedent and of the more pronounced Scots sense of identity, Scotland now has not merely an assembly but a parliament...

...If that happened, it would leave a disunited kingdom much diminished in size, population, economic strength, and international significance...

...In this case, though, they were merely trying to resolve a dilemma resulting from new developments of great constitutional significance...

...What is more, elected representatives from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to sit in the London Parliament and participate in making laws and imposing taxes on the English as well as on other Britons...

...In that same stylebook, BBC weather forecasters were told not to make references to meteorological conditions "across the nation...

...One London newspaper despaired for "the nation that dare not speak its name...

...In his book, The English, Jeremy Paxman, Britain's leading television news anchor, observed: "Once upon a time the English knew who they were...

...The Welsh can be a contrary people...

...in Disarray By Norman Gelb London The British Broadcasting Corporation recently issued a curious instruction to its editors, news anchors and stable of correspondents...

...Indeed, the Scots have managed to retain an undeniably privileged position in the United Kingdom: Per capita, the British Treasury spends more on them than on any other ethnic group...