On the cover of its renowned October edition, British GQ asked ‘What’s so great about Britain?’. The query appeared against a tableau of celebrities assembled onto a set resembling a British street. Among them were Dame Emma Thompson, Andrew Garfield and fellow London-to-Hollywood commuters, whose own answers to the question — revealed inside the issue —unwittingly betrayed their rootlessness.
The Spectator declared the feature ‘a horror show’, lampooning what it claimed were saccharine clichés and naming tropes it thought more worthy of celebration: drunkenness, loutishness, bad teeth. Amid this culture war, true patriots have found themselves torn. Can one ever answer what’s great about Britain without resorting to platitudes?
Some argue this is a byproduct of the internet age, in which people are well versed in the visual language of Britishness, but lack the spiritual depth to elevate these reference points into something more profound. It’s not really about Yorkshire pudding, simmering alcoholism or poor dental hygiene: it’s about hospitality, the pursuit of joy and a sense of youthful abandon.
Capturing the soul of a nation without slipping into parody is admittedly difficult when the nation takes such pride in ritual and ceremony. Tom Holland, co-host of perennially popular podcast The Rest Is History, articulated the fine line between majesty and excess in a tweet about The King’s coronation in 2023: ‘The standout was, for me, Penny Mordaunt’s magnificently imposing performance as Athena.’
Dame Penny was, of course, then Lord President of the Council and spent most of that day carrying a giant sword in front of millions. Now, she and Chris Lewis have published a book celebrating these rituals, aptly named Pomp & Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter (Biteback, £22). The tome seeks to champion our esoteric customs at a time when patriotic symbols are being appropriated by the far right. The authors say these symbols are ‘the antidote to nationalism’ and that we should reclaim them.
Fashion appears to agree, finding in Britishness a highly covetable asset: the latest campaigns from Burberry, starring Olivia Colman as a waitress in a fish-and-chip shop, or from Barbour, which cast Edie Campbell in an ode to British heritage, suggest an audience receptive to the romanticism of our cultural landscape. Yet patriotism requires more than sartorial imitations.
Amid these posturings, it’s high time we put substance over style.
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