RULE BRITANNIA !!

Boris Johnson is absolutely right when he says that the British should stop being embarrassed about our past. The truth is that we should actually embrace it and laud it, for if it was not for the British much of the world would still be largely uninhabited jungle and the majority of its people would still be heathens, savages, headhunters and cannibals.

Perhaps that's a bit extreme, but then the constant stream of anti-British vitriol which has been spewing from the media and assorted left wing sources in recent times demands a response. Did the British take Christianity and education to much of the world ? Certainly. Was it the British, admittedly along with others, who 'discovered' the Americas, Africa and Australasia and introduced the inhabitants of these lands to new ways that have led to vastly improved lives ? Of course. 

I do not say that this has been achieved without some negatives along the way. There was the slave trade, near annihilation of indigenous peoples, brutality, war and much more, but this is all part of the same historical story. Without the negatives there would have been no positives. Should modern sensitivities now preclude celebration of our nation's past, as those who have tried to remove much loved items from the "Last Night of The Proms" would wish ? 

History cannot and must not be rewritten; that way is the way of the dictatorships of countries such as the Soviet Union and China, not to mention NAZI Germany. Tearing down statues and changing the names of buildings and streets because some 'take offence', is itself, offensive. Cecil Rhodes may not have been a very nice man, to some modern eyes, but his vast wealth has been used to achieve great good. Do those who want his statue removed from Oriel College in Oxford also propose returning the legacy that he left ?

Our nation's history is a chequered one, with both highs and lows, good and bad, but it is our history and, warts and all, it should be celebrated as such. There may be lessons to learn and explanations to be offered but to attempt to ban elements of it or to limit discussion to one narrow point of view cannot be allowed. Yes, we must admit that it was not all perfect, far from it in fact, but neither was it all bad. 

Remember the bad and learn from it, but celebrate the good, loudly and from the roof tops. Britain is a "Land of Hope and Glory", Jerusalem has been built in "England's Green and Pleasant Land" and Britons certainly "Never, Never, Never Shall Be Slaves" !