We're British, we don't do mottos

Britain's quest for a national motto
By Mark Rice-Oxley
LONDON - THE French have their 'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite'. The Americans have 'In God We Trust'. Even tiny countries like Antigua and Fiji have their national mottos, stirring calls to nationhood, faith, solidarity.
Not so Britain. Until now, that is.

Keen to redefine an increasingly diverse nation and its values, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government has launched a quest for a new motto, a 'statement of values' as ministers call it.

Mr Brown himself betrayed a Latin predilection when, upon first taking office in the summer, he said that he lived by his school's hallowed maxim, 'usque conabor' (I will try my utmost).

And yet officials may prefer to stick with that rather than go with some of the suggestions that have been pouring in the past week to the BBC and the Times, both of which are conducting their own soundings into what the new motto should say.

'Once Great: Britain,' offered one contributor. 'At least we're not French,' read a second. 'Americans who missed the boat,' quipped a third.

While some did genuinely try to come up with more sincere efforts, most were mocking in tone.

'It's stirring up a good characteristic of the British, and that is a sardonic humour towards any attempt by government to do unnecessary and pompous things,' says Sir Bernard Crick, a former government adviser on citizenship.

Mr Brown though believes he has good reason to play the British card: rising nationalism in Wales, Scotland and England, and disenchanted ethnic minorities are picking at the seams of British unity.

He has already floated ideas like a new 'national day' and new citizenship rules.

But philosopher and author A.C. Grayling thinks a new motto is not the way to go about this.

'It's characteristic of how we have done things, a rather cheap, slogan-based solution to what are more complicated problems,' he says.

Author Chris Cleave, who writes about contemporary Britain in his fiction, thinks something from Shakespeare might do the trick: 'I like 'Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.'(from Measure For Measure).'

The government says it has had plenty of worthwhile suggestions and that it now plans a consultation process on what the 'statement of values' should be and how it should be used.

But clearly Mr Brown will have to try his utmost to convince his nation that it is a worthwhile exercise.

For, as one blog contributor put it recently: 'We're British; we don't do mottos.'