Schoolgirl's Union Jack dress ban reveals contempt our political class has for Britain

Back in 1941, the great patriot George Orwell wrote that "England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles, it is always felt there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman".

That spirit of self-loathing within the progressive elite is perhaps even stronger today, fuelled by a neurotic obsession with diversity and a blind worship of mass immigration. We now inhabit a land where the noble ideal of patriotism is widely denigrated as a form of bigotry and where identity politics have replaced national solidarity.

A vast exercise in social engineering and political indoctrination is underway to impose the new orthodoxy. The past is being "decolonised" and the present is being drastically refashioned by new arrivals, challenging the very concept of British nationhood. Incredibly, one in every three babies born here has a foreign mother. Similarly in more than 2000 schools, 50% of pupils do not speak English as their first language.

"We will create a new social order," said Labour's Deputy Leader Harriet Harman when she introduced the 2010 Equality Act. This is one pledge the political establishment has kept. But the change has been accompanied by an increasing sense of alienation among ordinary Britons, as exemplified this week by the case of Courtney Wright, 12, from Warwickshire, who has just endured the full force of woke authoritarianism and ideological hysteria.

Her ordeal began last Friday when her school held a "Culture Celebration Day". Pupils were encouraged to wear the traditional costumes of their families' homelands. Some donned the burka, others the niqab headscarf. Several turned up in flowing Nigerian robes.

Taking the school's instruction at face value, Ms Wright decided to celebrate British culture by wearing a Union Jack dress, while she also prepared a speech to talk about British values and traditions. There was nothing divisive or prejudiced in what she planned to say. Indeed, the need for inclusion was one of her central themes.

But what she failed to recognise is how unhinged the diversity zealots have become. They treat national pride as a malevolent, reactionary force and the Union Jack as a symbol of oppression. Courtney became a victim of their doctrinal bullying.

She should have been praised for demonstrating her love of her country. Instead, having been told her dress was "unacceptable", she was prevented from making her speech, ordered out of assembly and humiliatingly made to wait in reception until her father came to collect her. Two other pupils fell foul of the diversity thought police at Bilton: one carrying a flag of St George, the other a Welsh flag.

According to the twisted logic of the equality campaigners, every culture must be cherished - except the ones native to Britain. The UK used to be famous for its pragmatism but today too many of our civic leaders seem to be infected with a kind of madness that makes them want to destroy our civilisation.

They blather about the "far right" but they are the real extremists in their yearning for social revolution. Lacking a moral compass , these wreckers are offended by the sight of the British flag but relish the emblems of militant Islam. They shriek about "white privilege" and "unconscious bias" but are unfazed by imported sectarianism and gangland violence.

They regard the European Convention of Human Rights as sacrosanct, but think borders should be demolished. Bent on their mission of indoctrination, they peddle endless deceitful propaganda about our past, such as the pretence that Britain is "a land of immigrants" whereas we used to be one of the most homogenous, stable societies on earth.

In a speech in 2000 Labour's Robin Cook even questioned the very existence of British nationhood, describing our country as "a gathering of communities and races, the vast majority of which are not indigenous to these islands".

Courtney Wright's innocent enthusiasm is an antidote to this kind of cynical sneering.

She has won an apology from her school and the Prime Minister expressed his support for her yesterday. But words will be meaningless if the revolution continues, leaving patriots like Courtney isolated again.

No defence for complacent BBC

The BBC's management is not very good at management. Its addiction to navel-gazing, buck-passing, paper-shuffling, virtue-signalling and empire-building has inhibited decisive action, with the result that the Corporation presides over a relentless stream of scandals, like the recent ugly episodes involving crude behaviour at Masterchef, antisemitism at Glastonbury, and partisan coverage of the conflict in Gaza.

These failings have nothing to do with "lack of resources", that favourite excuse wheeled out by so many public sector organisations to evade responsibility for their own ineptitude. In fact, the BBC currently has a colossal annual budget of £5.3billion, underwritten by £3.7billion from the licence fee. Even with all this cash, Director General Tim Davie claims to run a "lean" outfit, but such a boast is contradicted by the reality of the Corporation's sprawling bureaucracy. The BBC's annual report, published this week, lists 90 senior executives on salaries above £178,00, with 30 of them taking home more than £250,000.

There are six Human Resources Directors, three Strategy Directors, two Directors of Transformation and two Directors of Communications.

Davies's sclerotic, top-heavy hierarchy apparently cannot cope without a Chief People Officer on £355,000 or a Group Director for Corporate Affairs on £315,000 or a Corporate Development Director on £255,000. The bloated structure undermines dynamism and breeds complacency. This week the BBC declared that it offers "outstanding value".

That's about as credible as the exhibitionist Gregg Wallace's assertion that autism prevents him from wearing underwear.

Southport killer presents ultimate moral question

Exactly 60 years ago this week, Parliament outlawed the death penalty. The measure was hailed as a milestone on the road towards a more compassionate, civilised nation. But it has hardly worked out like that. Since abolition, violent crime has rocketed.

In 1964, when the last executions were conducted, there were just 296 homicides in Britain. That figure had risen to 857 four decades later. Our streets and our prisons have become more disordered. The authority of the police is in crisis. Faith in the justice system is collapsing. Abolition was meant to be an indicator of moral strength but it actually showed how the state was losing the confidence to punish society's enemies. The removal of the ultimate sanction for hardened, dangerous criminals meant that there was a commensurate downward ratchet effect on all other sentences. There is another moral question which deserves an answer: why should law-abiding citizens have to fork out to keep monsters like the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana alive?

Squeamishness about hanging is part of our descent into a soft touch Britain - and it is the vulnerable to pay the highest price.