The instant Gordo started going on about Britishness last summer, adopting his most special I-am-being-very-serious-because-I-am-such-a-deep-thinker frown and tone of voice, it was obvious bollocks. From first to last.
Here we had/have a Labour prime minister urgently seeking to project himself as a statesman and man of gravitas who was also:
a) Unelected as prime minister
b) Scottish
c) Near universally loathed across much of England
At the same time, the SNP had just ended 50-plus years of Labour control in Scotland.
There was also the inconvenient matter of the West Lothian question.
Oooh, thinks Brown. This could be tricky.
Dung! Light bulb goes off in said Scottish head! Brilliant idea coming from master political strategist (because he is, you know – or at least so he has to persuade himself: after all, he hadn't just been our greatest-ever chancellor, he was now PM, the biggest of the big beasts)! Stand by!
The answer? BRITAIN!
Worked at Rorke's Drift, after all. Worked in two world wars as well. Think about Adam Smith! Think about the Queen Mum! Billy Bremner! Billy Conolly! Sean Connery!
We need a Britishness Day! We need to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen, to sing the national anthem, to have children clutching their little hearts with their little fists, to allow a manly tear to slide down our cheeks as we contemplate our great and glorious nation and, of course, our great and glorious leader.
It is pathetic. It is laughable. It is grotesque.
Has there ever been a more transparently self-serving or stupid idea? A more obvious attempt to occupy the apparent moral high ground precisely so as to gain a narrow political advantage?
This is Gordo all over, the clunking fist at his most clunkingly cretinous.
And amazingly, I think he seriously believes no one recognises what he is up to.
It is stupidity and sanctimoniousness on a gargantuan scale.
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