Young ‘embarrassed’ about being English

THE majority of young people do not feel proud to be English, a major survey has found.

Those aged 18-24 are more likely to be embarrassed about their English heritage than those from older generations, according to a Yougov poll of more than 20,000 adults.

Among the younger age group, 55 per cent said they not feel proud to be English, almost double the proportion of those aged 65 and over.

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said that schools were to blame for failing to teach children to have a “sense of pride in the country’s past”.

“In schools they have [practically] stopped teaching history, and the history they do teach tends to be very sceptical of Britain’s past,” he said.

“Instead of seeing the Victorian era as the height of progress, change, industry and the abolition of slavery, it is seen as negative. Even the Magna Carta is presented as a bunch of feudal lords.” English pride is felt by about two thirds of people in coastal and former industrial towns, but less than half of people in major cities such as Liverpool and Manchester.

Parts of Lincolnshire and the Midlands identify particularly strongly as English, with more than nine out of 10 respondents saying they felt very strongly or fairly strongly English. However, in London boroughs such as Hackney and Lambeth, pride in being English is felt by less than four in 10.

The poll for the BBC found the majority of those who voted in the EU referendum believed England was better in the past, with 28 per cent of young people saying they think the country’s best years lie ahead.