Pride in Britain's History Plummets to Record Low After Decade of Woke Self-Hatred

Pride in Britain’s History Plummets to Record Low After Decade of Woke Self-Hatred

Pride in Britain’s history has plummeted to a record low since 2013, a major survey has found, as woke self-loathing takes its toll and the wartime generation dies out. The Telegraph has more.

Just 64% of the public said they were “proud” or “very proud” of Britain’s history in the British Social Attitudes Survey 2023, down from 86% in 2013 and the lowest proportion since the question was first asked in 1995.

Alex Scholes, the Senior Researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), which conducted the survey, said there was a connection between changing attitudes and the fact that there are fewer people alive today who lived through or fought in the Second World War.

“It definitely has an impact,” Mr. Scholes said. “History is possibly the standout area because that’s where we’ve seen the greatest drop over the past decade.

“It was consistently over 80% between 1995 and 2013 and now it’s 64% and that’s quite a sizeable drop in the last decade.”

Even the youngest people who can remember living through the Second World War are now in their mid to late 80s.

Polling has consistently shown that those who fought in or lived through the war, and their children, are more patriotic than younger generations.

A YouGov poll of 4,611 people in April found that 81% of those aged 65 or above were “very” or “fairly” patriotic, compared to just 39% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 45% of those aged between 25 and 49.

Prof. Robert Tombs, Professor Emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge, said increasingly prominent criticism of slavery and the British Empire has also contributed to the decline in pride in our history.

“I expect that not only the passing of the generation who lived through the war, but also of those who knew people who lived through the war is significant,” Prof Tombs said.

“But the generally negative portrayal of British history in the media, fiction, TV, films and schools must surely have had an effect. This is true across the Anglophone world.”