I’M Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and I’m now a proud patriot. But how patriotic are you? Check whether you like the following things and find out if your patriotism is lacking.
ONE STAR: Eritrean restaurants, speaking foreign languages, watching Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, Jeremy Corbyn
Liking these things is not patriotic at all and verges on treason. If you’re only as patriotic as this, you probably don’t even remember crying when Gazza got kicked out of the Euros. I did. I bawled like a baby.
TWO STARS: McDonald’s, bands that are bigger in America than Britain, the rapper Slick Rick, Top Gear’s Matt LeBlanc years, England’s 2010 World Cup campaign
If you like these things it’s an improvement, because they’re at least striving towards Britishness. Try to identify where you’re not being patriotic enough – for me, it was that I didn’t completely back Brexit – and sing Rule Britannia five times a day to boost your patriotism levels.
THREE STARS: Blur, a fortnight in a static caravan near Filey in torrential rain, Beckham’s red card for kicking that Argie, the Falklands War
Now we’re getting somewhere. If you’ve reached this level there’s no need to be ashamed about your patriotism, and you’re certainly xenophobic enough to shoot foreigners for your country should the opportunity arise, but there’s always room to do better. Perhaps put a flagpole in your garden.
FOUR STARS: Chicken tikka masala, a Tesco bag blowing around a concrete shopping arcade, Oasis in the 90s, Spitfires, 1966, the Last Night of the Proms and The Archers
Absolute top-tier patriotism. This is where I am. I can’t even achieve an erection unless there’s a Roger Moore Bond film on and I’m wearing a Union Jack waistcoat, and I’m proud of that. Sometimes I spend an evening watching a box-set of every one of Her Majesty’s Christmas Messages from 1957. And I remain standing, tears coursing down my cheeks, throughout.
