Flagging up the English question

A couple of posts worth highlighting from different points on the political spectrum.

From the left, Socialist Unity on the Raise the Flag campaign:

The importance of fan culture is very big in England, because Sports
Patriotism is the only legitimised expression of the English national
consciousness. Many socialists forget that national consciousness is –
for the vast majority of people – their dominant form of self-identity,
and can co-exist with other forms of identity, such as class
consciousness. It is important that we contest the political content of
the national consciousness, so that people’s sense of self-identity is
associated with progressive and not reactionary values.

On the right, Mick Fealty’s Brassneck points us to The Croydonian and some interesting remarks by Matthew Parris at a Conservative Way Forward meeting:

A split, perhaps deliberately engineered, between the Scottish Tories
and the Tories in the rest of the country would best serve Conservatism
in Scotland (What I would call the Germany / Bavaria model.  C),
as otherwise English nationalism could be the accomplice of Scottish
nationalism. A Scottish and rest of the UK Conservative parties could
be good for both, and there are plenty of areas where a Scottish
Conservative party could act alone an in the interests of Scotland
rather than the UK, so the final question is whether the Conservatives
can successfully pursue an approach between what we have now and
prospective Scottish independence.