Articles revealed in The Eye are written by a crew of contributors and edited by the multi-award successful former BBC information and present affairs reporter, Phil Parry.
As a unprecedented quantity of media protection is dedicated to the Queen’s demise (whose funeral is in the present day), and accession of her son Charles (who just lately visited Wales), right here our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, asks what is supposed by the phrase ‘nation’, as it’s being continually used in the present day.
Earlier he described how he was helped to interrupt into the South Wales Echo workplace automotive when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early profession as a journalist, the significance of expertise within the job, and making clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency providers in addition to court docket circumstances are central to any media operation.
He has additionally explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters needed to stay in squalid flats, the important position of bills, and about one in all his most essential tales on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Wales TV Present Affairs sequence, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which gained an award even after it was axed, lengthy after his profession actually took off.
Phil has defined too how essential it’s truly to talk to individuals, the advantage of velocity in addition to accuracy, why data of ‘historical past’ is important, how sure materials was faraway from TV Present Affairs programmes when secret cameras had for use, and a few of these he has interviewed.
He has disclosed as effectively why investigative journalism is required now greater than ever though others have completely different opinions, how the present coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown is taking part in havoc with media schedules, and the significance of the vastly decrease common age of some political leaders in contrast with when he began reporting.
We hear it on a regular basis.
The phrase ‘nation’ is wheeled out daily now by the media, with the phrases ‘in mourning’ normally connected.
For instance – Reuters had as its headline: ‘King Charles vows to serve his nation as Britain mourns late queen’. The Independent gave us: ‘Nationwide mourning: What occurs now the Queen has died’. Within the Each day Echo it was: ‘Queen Elizabeth II: Nationwide mourning steering issued to companies & sport’. Sky Information supplied: ‘a interval of nationwide mourning has begun – how the Queen’s demise is being marked in the present day’.
The Occasions proclaimed final week: ‘Mourning lets a nation grow to be a household once more’ and The Solar (which is owned by the identical firm) screamed: ‘The Queen mourning interval: What the ten days of nationwide mourning imply’
The BBC’s Royal Correspondent Nicholas Witchell, joined in along with his respectful lowered-tone commentary (he was dubbed on-line, “the Royal toady”).
There have been even calls on social media to knight Huw Edwards, due to his protection of The Queen’s demise, (which is vastly ironic as Mr Edwards is Welsh, and continually tweets in regards to the significance of Wales!).
One wag stated over the web: “They need to name it the Nicholas Whitchell award for lack of self respect and arse licking!”.
So let me be clear – THERE IS TECHNICALLY NO BRITISH ‘NATION’.
The Queen was HEAD OF STATE. The state is known as ‘The UK of Nice Britain and Northern Eire’. This state contains various DIFFERENT nations.
This truth is outwardly misplaced on headline writers, until they imagine {that a} British ‘nation’ has been solid by the British Empire, or probably now by Brexit. Maybe they assume The Queen herself created a British ‘nation’!
The nations which make up the ‘United Kingdom of Nice Britain and Northern Eire’, have amongst them: England, Scotland and Wales.
Northern Eire is a little bit of an outlier, and I used to name it a ‘Province’, though it’s retro to take action now. After I labored on the BBC (which is the place I used to be for 23 years), there was (and nonetheless is) a division referred to as ‘Nations and Areas’.
However I wish to be completely plain right here. I’m NOT denigrating in any means, the views of the many individuals for whom The Queen is essential. I’m ONLY criticising the terminology that’s used.
It is usually a wonderfully legitemate stance that it’s higher to have a Constitutional Monarch, who inherits the title of Head of State, than it’s to have a instantly elected President, or one that’s appointed by senior elected politicians.
Nevertheless you might be pressured to conclude that The Queen’s supporters are being misled, as a result of ‘England’ (which is by far the most important of the nations), has apparently been used as a synonym for ‘Britain’.
Right now’s Britain is a RELATIVELY current creation too, and was solely made in 1921, after what turned the Republic of Eire was hived off, so when Leo Amery was urged to “communicate for England” within the Home of Commons in 1940, strongly implying Neville Chamberlain wasn’t doing so, he was, after all, being urged to do it truly for ‘Britain’.
Other than the demise of The Queen, and accession of her son, all the idea of nationhood, was additionally thrown into sharp reduction for me by the demise of her husband Prince Philip final 12 months, on the age of 99, and the astonishing quantity of protection dedicated to THAT.
There was heavy criticism of the quantity of those studies, and a message on The BBC web site learn: “We’re receiving complaints about an excessive amount of TV protection of the demise of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”. In actual fact the deluge of protests turned so nice, that officers needed to create a devoted complaints web page on their web site.
However confusion, apparently reigned (an applicable phrase maybe!), and in an interview by Prince Andrew (the primary since his disastrous one in 2019), his father was described as “the Grandfather of THE NATION”.
Mr Witchell stated the demise of Prince Philip was “a second of actual NATIONAL unhappiness”. The headline for Sky Information was: “Prince Philip: What does it imply to be in a interval of NATIONAL mourning?”.
What certainly?!
In the meantime an excessive amount of consideration has been targeted on Scotland, and whether or not this ‘nation’ may break free from the union, adopted, maybe, by Wales (though this appears unlikely).
But the English nation is coming to the fore now as effectively.
‘Englishness’, a ebook by Ailsa Henderson and (Welshman) Richard Wyn Jones, is a scholarly report of the union’s strengths.
The 9 massive quantitative surveys of ‘Englishness’ they’ve carried out since 2011 show that the quantity of people that describe themselves as completely or primarily ‘English’ quite than ‘British’ is rising, and that the concept of ‘Britishness’ – as soon as the glue that held the UK collectively – is weakening.
Londoners use ‘British’ to sign their cosmopolitanism; the Scots and Welsh to sign their unionism.
The 2014 Scottish referendum on independence stoked English grievances with out satisfying the Scots, and the 2015 election turned a rising political division between the 2 (together with Wales) right into a chasm, which was solely made deeper when Boris Johnson was elected in 2019.
Many in England apparently really feel that by pocketing more cash than they create, the Scots and Welsh usually are not taking part in honest (for instance Scottish Authorities funding per individual is 31 per cent above English ranges, in response to the Institute for Fiscal Research), and that membership of the EU was fallacious as a result of Parliament is the one rightful supply of energy, whereas English historical past has supplied ‘our island nation’ with each an internet of ties with the Anglo-sphere, and a singular world financial in addition to strategic area of interest.
Nevertheless the concept of Britain as an ‘island’ can also be problematic. The historian Norman Davies referred to as his ebook exploring nationhood ‘The Isles’ for that very motive.
One of many difficulties with English nationalism, in its newly radicalised and politicised kind, is that it might be too massive to be tamed, England accounts for 84 per cent of the British inhabitants (and rising) whereas Better London has extra individuals than Scotland and Wales mixed.
It is a scenario which may be very completely different from Germany or the USA the place no lander or state carries such a crushing weight amongst its friends.
The constructing of the UK was, over a millennium, the story of England’s relentless (at instances extraordinarily brutal), growth. First driving roughshod over the Celtic lands on its borders, then peoples internationally. The 1707 Act of Union introduced Scotland and England ‘collectively’, but was strongly resisted north of the border. A ‘union of crowns’, when James VI of Scotland additionally turned James I of England, in 1603, was a form of precursor.
Empire constructing is normally a fairly savage affair and this was no exception with England‘s, then Britain’s, success in carving out a world empire from the 17th century onwards, giving each UK ‘nation’ a stake within the shared prosperity.
But the phrase ‘the nation’ was even utilized in descriptions of how the general public complained strongly in regards to the quantity of protection regarding Prince Philip’s demise, (and this may increasingly sound a warning bell now, in regards to the wall-to-wall protection of his spouse’s demise)!
BBC One and BBC Two cleared their schedules of Friday night time staples together with EastEnders, Gardeners’ World and the ultimate of MasterChef, to simulcast pre-recorded tributes from his kids.
There’s, although, an underwhelming urge for food for abandoning altogether the concept Britain is an distinctive ‘nation’ – and it’s illustrated extraordinarily effectively by the tributes now to The Queen, in addition to these final 12 months to her husband, Prince Philip (the Each day Mail as an example, supplied 144 pages!).
Even the Prime Minister on the time, Boris Johnson, appeared combined up. When speaking in regards to the minute’s silence to mark a 12 months of lockdown on March 23 2021, together with those that have died within the pandemic, he stated: “We also needs to keep in mind the good spirit proven by our NATION over this previous 12 months”.
There have been, although, indicators of a backlash at what has been occurring.
On this vein, a 22-year-old man was charged after Prince Andrew was heckled throughout a procession down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.
It’s emerged that the leisure website Middle Parcs needed to a pointy U-turn over plans to ask clients to go away for the day when it introduced plans to shut its 5 UK websites for The Queen’s funeral, after officers confronted a barrage of complaints.
In earlier years, authors might have touched on one thing.
In 1908 G.Okay. Chesterton wrote a poem referred to as ‘THE SECRET PEOPLE’ which included the road “we’re the individuals of England that by no means have spoken but”, and now that a few of the individuals of England have began talking they aren’t going to be silenced quickly.
It appears the ‘nation’ of Britain is talking about being in mourning now, in response to the media.
No matter meaning..!
Welshman (though from the border with England!) Phil’s recollections of his exceptional many years lengthy award-winning profession in journalism as he was gripped by the uncommon disabling situation Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been launched in a serious ebook ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the ebook now!
Tomorrow – how disturbing information that the previous head of the most important police power within the UK, might have breached skilled requirements following the horrible homicide of a person who was introduced up in Wales, highlights as soon as extra the failings of South Wales Police (SWP).
