I envy the ease with which the Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish lift their flags ~ symbols of heritage carried without suspicion.

For many of us in England, the St George’s Cross has been burdened by years of appropriation, its meaning bent out of shape by people I don’t stand with. And so the question comes: am I patriotic? Not in the loud, performative sense. But in the quieter ways ~in wanting fairness, in caring about the land beneath my feet, in feeling protective of the humour, the contradictions, the decency that still runs through this place ~perhaps I am.

And if patriotism includes affection for your own people, then yes, I feel that, too. I’m especially fond of my fellow Brummies: their warmth, their wit, their refusal to take themselves too seriously.

I’m grateful as well for the small mercies of this island ~even our weather. We have our floods and our wildfires, of course, but not with the ferocity some countries endure; there’s a gentleness to our climate that mirrors the quieter loyalties I carry.

Yet I can’t pretend there isn’t a shadow side. I’m often ashamed of how many of the titled and entitled make the headlines for all the wrong reasons, as though their behaviour stands in for the rest of us. It doesn’t ~but it still stings.

And perhaps that’s the heart of it. My patriotism isn’t blind. It isn’t boastful. It isn’t borrowed from flags or slogans. It’s a kind of stewardship ~loving a place enough to see its flaws clearly and still wanting better for it. A loyalty that doesn’t shout but stays. A loyalty that hopes.