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Until a few years ago I, like most English people, thought of myself as British. Being English was something we did in our spare time, and gave little thought to. How times have changed.

The Blair Government, devolution and the rule of a majority in Britain (the English) by a minority (the Scots) have all sharpened up the English mind and, with it, the desire for a sense of English national identity. This will be wonderfully apparent tomorrow, when we celebrate the Feast of St George. Again, 10 years ago, this was an event recognised, it was said, by only fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists. Today people whom even Dave would find unexceptional like to mark their English identity. In pubs from Cornwall to Cumberland, flags and banners of

St George will be proudly paraded. The red cross of our patron saint is found on the bumpers of countless cars. After centuries of being made, for alleged reasons of good taste, to submerge our national identity or even feel ashamed of it, it is out in the open.

What has always amazed me is why we should feel bad about it. I remain unclear as to what hideous crimes the English people have committed. If we have been so oppressive to the Scots, or the Irish, or even the Welsh, then why do so many of them choose to come to live and work in our country? Of course, what Labour affects to call “ordinary people” have very few hang-ups about being English, or, if they happen to have the misfortune to come from somewhere else, with the English. The whole sense of shame we are meant to feel about our identity has been manufactured by politicians, and, as usual, for their own sectarian ends.

Devolution is perhaps the greatest of the many lies perpetrated by this Government. Gordon Brown, who is keen on keeping a vestige of something called the United Kingdom so he can have something better than Scotland to be prime minister of, frequently claims devolution has strengthened the idea of Britishness. As with his economic claims, this is utter rubbish.

The main reason the English have been forced to recognise their own identity is that, from the moment this Government came to power, the proclamation of the identities of the Scottish and Welsh in particular were forced down our throats. Now, being a tolerant people, we English don’t mind that: but we expect, being a fair-minded people, to have the right to do the same ourselves.

Labour fears the English identity because it represents a challenge to the Scottish-dominated Government that has run this country since 1997. Since devolution, there is absolutely no justification for Scottish MPs to vote in divisions at Westminster on issues that, in their own country, are settled in the Scottish Parliament. Yet they do, and they do because, in an increasing number of instances, Labour would not win votes there on solely English matters without the entirely improper help of Scottish votes.

So far, the renaissance of our national identity has, I am happy to say, taken an entirely benign course. It is about cheering on our football and cricket teams, eating roast beef and drinking pints of real ale. I am deeply in favour of all those things. But I am also deeply in favour of the rise of an English national consciousness that dictates a fair political deal for England: and that is not happening.

Realising it was losing this argument, Labour tried to palm us off with regional assemblies. As an intelligent people, we did not fall for that. What we want, and deserve, is an English parliament at Westminster, where English matters are decided solely by representatives of the English people. And the jolly Feast of St George is the ideal day to make a resolution to ourselves, and to our rulers, that we shall not allow our swords to sleep in our hands until justice is done, and we are given equality with the Scots.

Telegraph