John Simpson: ‘I’d narrowly escaped execution as a British army spy in republican West Belfast'
To celebrate the release of our recent 'English Issue', Paula Minchin spoke to six individuals on what being English means to them. Today's is John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor.
Remembrance Sunday in the Anglican church in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad, Iraq, not long before the biggest military attack in human history: in the congregation, a couple of dozen bitter-end Brits, some Indians and a small selection of Arab Christians. ‘How’s it going, Yousif?’ I asked one of the latter, after we’d belted out the hymns with surprising enthusiasm. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘mustn’t grumble.’
Kipling wrote: ‘And what should they know of England, who only England know?’ What he meant is that the notion of Englishness stretches much farther than most Brits realise. ‘If you give me your word as an English gentleman, I’ll let you through,’ said a Namibian border guard to me, after a drunken soldier guarding a bridge in neighbouring Angola had chucked my passport into the river below.
'You can come across an appreciation of Englishness in surprisingly hostile territory'
For many people around the world, English-ness has real meaning. A lot of it is to do with humour — Mr Bean, Monty Python, Paddington Bear. The Royal Family is much admired (mostly, I’ve noticed, in republics), although Margaret Thatcher still has a following among older Russians. If I may say so, some of it is because of BBC world news and football, too. Supporting Chelsea (not always an easy thing to do) has gotten me out of trouble in China and Nigeria and singing Blue Is The Colour won me new friends in Brazil.
You can come across an appreciation of Englishness in surprisingly hostile territory. ‘I regard him as the very finest type of English gentleman,’ said the gaunt-looking Dáithí Ó Conaill, chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, when I interviewed him about a newly appointed Northern Ireland Secretary; sadly, those words were off camera.
Only a year or so earlier, I’d narrowly escaped execution as a British army spy in republican West Belfast; I was wearing a pair of elderly, but well-polished, Tricker’s brogues. They might not have liked the Brits, but the IRA could spot decent footwear when they saw it.
What’s the essence of Englishness? Nowadays, alongside the humour and the Royal Family and the rest, it seems to me to be our inclusivity. Some of the strongest defenders of this country I know are — well, let’s think: Germans, Poles, Spanish, Afrikaners, Syrians, Afghans, Japanese… it’s largely because the Brits are happy to let you live your life as you choose. We even have an expression for it: laissez faire. Characteristically, it’s French.
This extends wider than to human beings. I’ll finish as I began, in church. Recently, by pre-arrangement, I took my Irish terrier to Holy Communion. ‘He’s so well-behaved,’ I gushed. Directly the first hymn started, Colonel Cody raised his head to the hammer-beam roof and howled far louder than anyone else in the congregation. At the end, I apologised grovellingly to the vicar. ‘Not at all, dear sir,’ he said. ‘In the book of Psalms, we are enjoined to make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and it doesn’t specify what kind of noise.’ My idea of Englishness exactly.
John Simpson is the BBC’s world affairs editor. His programme ‘Unspun World’ is broadcast weekly on BBC Two, the BBC News Channel and BBC World Service
For what being English means to Tom Parker Bowles, click here
For what being English means to Sir John Major, click here
This feature originally appeared in the June 10, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe
