It’s strange to think that the British people were once addressed as adults by those who governed them. In theory, this shouldn’t have been the case; in previous times, there was more social rigidity and more class deference. But everyone from weather forecasters to prime ministers somehow resisted the temptation, until relatively recently, to speak to us as if we were wayward school kids – or ‘half devil and half child’ as Rudyard Kipling had it in The White Man’s Burden . If Winston Churchill was giving one of his wartime broadcasts today, he’d have to end it: ‘And wrap up warm/Take a brolly/Stay hydrated!’

When did this ruling-class obsession with the national flags being so toxic that they can only be brought out for sporting events take hold?

An unexpected expression of our infant

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