Peter Hitchens: We rant about the BBC Proms … yet make ourselves slaves to coronaphobia

Why are arguments about the love of country always held between BBC-type Britain-hating pinkoes, embarrassed by their own nation, and shouty jingoes, who never think about what patriotism really means?

Here we all are in a state of rage about whether the words of Rule, Britannia should be sung at the Last Night Of The Proms.

Yet the same people who claim to be exercised about this meekly submit to compulsory masks, house arrest, the suppression of Parliament, compulsory family separation and a catalogue of outrages against our liberty that only a slavish mind would accept.

For months, jingoes put up with being treated like cattle or serfs. Then they get cross because of a song? What is wrong with them?

A proper patriot knows that what makes us great above all is centuries of liberty, and a state that is beneath our feet, not over our heads.

All they needed to do was to say ‘We’re not putting up with this’ as our ancestors so frequently did. But they gave in without a whimper.

When Britain actually did rule the waves, my late father helped it to do so. In peacetime this involved years of rigorous training, harsh discomfort and long months of separation from home. In wartime, well, you probably know what it involved if you think about it.

That’s why we did not become the slaves of Hitler in the 1940s – because we still controlled the seas that surround us.