SIR – St George’s Day ought to be a celebration of the English people and our history and culture. Efforts to exploit St George’s Day for other agendas should be opposed.
No, I’m not complaining about any political party, but about the comments of David James, Bishop of Bradford (T&A, April 21).
Imagine, for contrast, that the Bishop chose to address the Irish on St Patrick’s Day, asserting that St Patrick’s non-Irishness, his ‘foreign origins,’ was a value in itself, and that the Irish, in particular, would find the most ‘appropriate inspiration’ for their collective life in individuals ‘of a different background to [their] own’ – their prime virtue again being mere non-Irishness.
If he did, would it seem mean-spirited, inappropriate to the occasion, and objectively anti-Irish? I believe so, particularly if his address was delivered in the context of a personal campaign to persuade the Irish to accommodate themselves to displacement by other peoples. My polite request to Bishop David: if you cannot join in celebration with fellow Englishmen and others who wish us well on St George’s Day without using the occasion as a vehicle for your political agendas, say nothing.
Happy St George’s Day!
Nick Dean, Brantwood Grove, Heaton Bradford
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