St George's Day

[emmelinemay]

A government minister has admitted that the government spent a mere 230 pounds promoting St George's Day over the last five years.

Comments

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

When will people learn that the only way to kill off the racist appropriation of the flag is for right minded citizens (of every race and original nationality) to take it back?

Also surely they MUST have spent more than that? :/

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I reckon make it a proper bank holiday.

More people in the UK celebrate St Partick's day, and I bet most of them have never even been to Ireland let alone have Irish ancestry. People celebrate it because it is promoted heavily by a booze company, and it's a holiday in Ireland.

Make our day a holiday, get a big drinks sponsor, and boom, hello national pride.

I mean national pride as in 'yay for england' not as in 'darkies go home'. It's funny, I remember pre euro 1996, anyone with a St G's flag on display was racist. Then when England was doing so well, EVERYONE had one. We started to claim it back from the far right.

[annomalley.livejournal.com]

Is large amounts of national pride ever a good thing though? I just don't get it. The way I see it, nationality is an accident of birth, why should anyone be proud of an accident? Marginally pleased about it I can see, and hey, I chose to come and live here so there must be something right about this country - it's certainly a much more comfortable part of the world than many others. But "marginally pleased" doesn't wave flags.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Lots of things are "an accident of birth". If you're tall you can play basketball, doesn't mean your love for the game is somehow less worthy, or that you shouldn't be proud of your ability to play.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty proud of London, and I've only lived here for 11 years. Come to that, I'm pretty proud to live in hackney, and I've only been there for a year and a half!!

It's a bit harder to be proud of England, when so much of it sucks. But I think national pride (as in YAY ENGLAND, not the racist sort) is actually really important.

It's certainly a shame that you can't talk about national pride without having to add a qualifier in about it being not racist ir xenophobic.

Guy - are we *agreeing* on something????????

[annomalley.livejournal.com]

I guess "pride" has different interpretations/connotations. When I see your icon (for future readers, in case it changes, it's a St George's cross), what I see is someone saying "we're better than everybody else because we're British", and I just can't agree with this one-upmanship based on accidents and subjective factors, which seem to be needlessly divisive. National pride to me is only slightly more relevant than supporting a specific football team.

[green-badger.livejournal.com]

I think if you're proud of something you're more inclined to look after it...

[annomalley.livejournal.com]

How many people who wave St George's flags during football season drop their MackyD containers out of their gas-guzzler's window on the way home?

I don't think there's a correlation between looking after one's environment/neighbours and nationality, and am more inclined to consider the benefits of seeing oneself as part of a (much) larger organism. Think Globally, Act Locally - what nationally?

[purplegril.livejournal.com]

I think everyone should be proud of who and what they are, because that's likely to mean that they're happy with who they are and what they are. And pride isn't the same as thinking something's better than something else, that's not what the word means. I'm proud of being a woman, being ginger, being English, my music tastes...etc etc because I like who I am. Simple as that.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

How do we "take it back" though, when we never did much with it in the first place?

I can't remember St George's day in the '70s pre-footie and pre-lager - it just didn't happen in my experience, and that's for someone from a fairly jingoistic school.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I think she meant take back the meaning of the flag, rather than St G's day itself.

The flag was a symbol of the far right for so long. My personal theory is that Euro '96 made the St G's flag more acceptable!!

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Yes I mean the flag rather that St G's day.

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

But how much did they spend on St Patrick's Day and whatever the Scottish and Welsh equivalents are (I am foreign and too lazy to look them up ;-p)? If they didn't spend anything on that either, yet they are celebrated far more extensively, doesn't that say something about the English, rather than the government?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure St Patrick's Day is mainly promoted by Guinness...

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Red Ken also spent a bunch of taxpayer's money on it, IIRC.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

I, personally, think that's a good idea - I think we should support St G's day.

Although a drink company would be better, like with Guinness.

[dan-lane.livejournal.com]

but what drinks company would want the potential PR nightmare of being associated with St G's day?.... perhaps Lambrini?

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, he spent money on St P's day?

Bleugrh.

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

Well, there was the parade, but whether that was privately sponsored I don't know.

[gaius-octavian.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's what I meant. And Diwali, and Chinese New Year... Everything apart from St George's day, it seems.

[yaruar.livejournal.com]

although at least st patrick was a british born saint with a strong link to the country. what is the incentive of celebrating a turkish born roman soldier?

it's not as if we don't have enough to choose from

http://www.britannia.com/bios/saints/

[http://users.livejournal.com/eddy_/]

What I don't understand is how they managed to spend only £170 to promote a national holiday. I mean, someone must have been given the job of promoting it to have had anything spent on it, so what was it spent on exactly? Two dosen posters and dry cleaning for those two old flags that someone dug up when they were cleaning out the store cupboard the other week?

[jaketherat.livejournal.com]

Emmy there's a solution to your job woes here, set yourself up as a quango and get government funded to promote St George's Day. While your at it, another bank holiday would be nice!

[jaketherat.livejournal.com]

I fail at proofreading. That is one of the worst grammatic constructions I have ever made.

[emmelinemay.livejournal.com]

'while your at it'

nice!