Its not the being British but the taking part!

As the government wrestles with identity in its many forms in the UK new comers now have to complete citizenship exams testing their knowledge of Britain.

I bet one very important English attitude isn't tested - the applause for the loser of a race. What is celebrated in Britain is the taking part, the sportmanship, the amateur spirit of competition.

This has been criticised as a classist mentality. Only the well off have the free-time to partake in such indulgencies as sport. Working classes are therefore excluded. Professionalism, as we have seen, has developed all sports and taking athletes to new levels not least in my favourite, Rugby.

Yet as I've argued before, the elite are not all bad. Maybe they are bad because they have what the poor don't have, but as Nietzsche would argue they are free of petty financial constraints so they can illustrate what life is really about.

We have the Classical and Romantic periods of art to thank the elite for. Money was granted in those days, the elite were free. Art is Money these days - and it shows!

So maybe the spirit of amateurism has its merits since it so entertained the elites. Well philosophically it is clearly virtuous. A winner can only win because there is a loser. A person who refuses to lose denies the winner. A winner can only win, and a loser can only lose because they accept the contest along with other players. It is the accepting of the contest which creates the game, and it is the gracious accepting of winning and losing which closes the game. Not wishing to sound too cliched but in a well played game all contestants are winners. I am always aware of the far greater joy in watching a good game of rugby even when my side loses, that watching a bad one where my side gains a pitiful victory.

As we all forget our Britishness (I'm assuming this attitude I once saw in England exists throughout the Isle) in favour of the visceral brutality of Americanism, I wonder whether we will remember that to be British is not the winning of a title but simple the taking part in the life of the island - whether we are winners or losers.