British culture - Is there any such thing?

[Kermit power]

Margaret Thatcher famously stated that there was no such thing as "Society", meaning that when people looked to "society" to pay their dole, house them, and generally solve their problems, they are in reality asking lots of individuals and families to put their hands in their pockets, because there isn't this single homogenous entity called society.

Move forward several decades and many people call for reductions in immigration on the grounds that it is damaging to "British culture", and I can't help wondering what exactly British culture is supposed to be?

I can find huge amounts in common with people "like me" - similarly educated, similarly travelled, and so forth - regardless of whether they are British or from another country, but stick me next to someone who grew up on an inner city estate, left school at 16 and works in an unskilled job and what common frames of reference do we have? If we all suddenly had universal translators, though, I'd be that the inner city Brit would find plenty of common ground with people from a similar socioeconomic background in countries all across the globe.

I don't think British Culture exists at all, at least not as an all-encompassing social entity. I think pretty much all cultures around the world are pretty much class based, and people in any given class will often have more in common with people from the same class in different countries than they will with people from different classes in the same country.

If you disagree, could you define what a "British Culture" which would be recognised by all classes consists of, and how it is significantly different from the cultures of other countries?

[Kermit power]

NomduJour said:

Kermit power said:

Margaret Thatcher famously stated that there was no such thing as "Society"

…except what she actually said was the opposite of the usual interpretation:

“There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate”.

She also said...

"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first."

[Kermit power]

Ashfordian said:

The above is correct, but we should not forget that historically the British will have influenced many other countries around the world so there will be a blurring or imitation.

Some minor examples of British culture, and you don't have to like them but you and someone living in an inner City council estate will be able to identify them:

- Changing of the Guard
- FA Cup final day
- The British Pub
- An English Breakfast
- Red telephone boxes
- Black cabs


It's really not hard to find examples of British Culture but you take them for granted. For example a siesta is seen as Spanish culture, a Diner is American culture. Both are easy to see as an outsider.

Identify them, yes. Identify with them?

The changing of the guard? I know what it is but I've never actually seen it, and it's hardly something that can be diluted by immigration, is it?

FA Cup Final day??? Surely most countries on the face of the planet have a football competition? I've never watched any of them (including the FA Cup), so I'd have no way of knowing if there's anything particularly British about it.

The British pub? Agreed, that is particularly British.

An English breakfast. Maybe, but how often does anyone actually have one? It would be interesting to know which is the more popular breakfast here... the English Breakfast American Corn Flakes or French croissants?

Red telephone boxes may well be iconic, and I suppose they actually have been wiped out by immigrants! Finnish Nokias, Swedish Ericssons, Korean Samsungs, American Apples...

Black cabs - in some ways this one actually underlines my point! We think of it as a universal British icon, but how many do you actually see outside big cities? Add urban vs rural to working class vs middle class.

[Kermit power]

Randy Winkman said:

Not a bad try.

But on the third one the Government has some new rules on that. On the fourth, being transgender was one of the reasons Briannah Ghey was killed and she is perhaps the inspiration for this thread. On the fifth one, tell that to the people queuing for the dentist in Bristol the other day.

I've got to be honest and say I've not actually read anything about her story!

It really was just a general feeling that for every fellow Brit that I can really relate to, there's plenty that might as well be from a different planet. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being different of course, right up to the point where people start trying to insist we're all one for political purposes.

[Kermit power]

AlexC1981 said:

Kermit power said:

Identify them, yes. Identify with them?

The changing of the guard? I know what it is but I've never actually seen it, and it's hardly something that can be diluted by immigration, is it?

FA Cup Final day??? Surely most countries on the face of the planet have a football competition? I've never watched any of them (including the FA Cup), so I'd have no way of knowing if there's anything particularly British about it.

The British pub? Agreed, that is particularly British.

An English breakfast. Maybe, but how often does anyone actually have one? It would be interesting to know which is the more popular breakfast here... the English Breakfast American Corn Flakes or French croissants?

Red telephone boxes may well be iconic, and I suppose they actually have been wiped out by immigrants! Finnish Nokias, Swedish Ericssons, Korean Samsungs, American Apples...

Black cabs - in some ways this one actually underlines my point! We think of it as a universal British icon, but how many do you actually see outside big cities? Add urban vs rural to working class vs middle class.

Well yes, everyone's experience is different, so really we can only generalise.

Which is really what I was thinking when I started the thread.

[Kermit power]

Ashfordian said:

Kermit power said:

Identify them, yes. Identify with them?

The changing of the guard? I know what it is but I've never actually seen it, and it's hardly something that can be diluted by immigration, is it?

FA Cup Final day??? Surely most countries on the face of the planet have a football competition? I've never watched any of them (including the FA Cup), so I'd have no way of knowing if there's anything particularly British about it.

The British pub? Agreed, that is particularly British.

An English breakfast. Maybe, but how often does anyone actually have one? It would be interesting to know which is the more popular breakfast here... the English Breakfast American Corn Flakes or French croissants?

Red telephone boxes may well be iconic, and I suppose they actually have been wiped out by immigrants! Finnish Nokias, Swedish Ericssons, Korean Samsungs, American Apples...

Black cabs - in some ways this one actually underlines my point! We think of it as a universal British icon, but how many do you actually see outside big cities? Add urban vs rural to working class vs middle class.

You said the below in your OP:

OP snippet said:

I can find huge amounts in common with people "like me" - similarly educated, similarly travelled, and so forth - regardless of whether they are British or from another country, but stick me next to someone who grew up on an inner city estate, left school at 16 and works in an unskilled job and what common frames of reference do we have? If we all suddenly had universal translators, though, I'd be that the inner city Brit would find plenty of common ground with people from a similar socioeconomic background in countries all across the globe.

Your response tells me you are the outlier. I deliberately chose the ones I listed and you have not failed to deliver with your ignorant responses.

Just because you don't identify with them, does not make them part of what makes up British Culture.

I think you are simply trying, and failing to belittle those who have different experiences to immigration to you. If you walked a mile in their shoes you would do a lot of soul searching and growing up.

Your position has similarities to the nuggets who want to label the British Countryside as 'racist'. It's a complete load of tosh by people who have little or no life experience of what they are commenting on!

Good lord, that's touched a nerve with you hasn't it!!!

I notice you've not actually managed to actually address any of the points I've made, but never mind, eh!

It probably says more about you than it does me that whilst I have less than fk all interest in football, even I know that you'd have to be a right loon to suggest the FA Cup final day - something which by definition contains no Scots or Northern Irish teams - as a defining example of British culture!!!

Not only a football match at Wembley but also that icon of London, the black cab (but how could you forget the Routemaster???) and a military ceremony at a Palace in, err, London! You do realise that quite a bit of Britain isn't actually inside the M25, don't you???

As for my supposedly trying to belittle people with differing experiences of immigration, how are any of the things you've mentioned even remotely threatened by any immigrants?

[Kermit power]

NomduJour said:

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”

The more things change…

I don't know who wrote that when, but the suet pudding is an interesting one. I'm not sure I've actually seen one in 30 years, which I guess suggests that British culture isn't exactly preserved in aspic.

Horse Racing though? I'd imagine a lot of people in Newmarket would share quite a bit of common ground with people in Chantilly, Kentucky and Ireland that they wouldn't share with anyone else in Britain, so it's hardly unique to here, is it? It was a surprise to find out that Japan is actually the largest horseracing country in the world!

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

And yet when he wrote that the Nazis were bombing the st out of the ordinary folk. And we were never more United apparently.

Will post my thoughts in a short while but have just spent an evening watching ‘kaleb’s world tour’ which took a young farmer from the bright lights of chipping Norton to Northampton. The world tour is progressing well.
An incredibly upbeat tonic to the miserable nonsense some of the people on this thread have been posting.

Never mistake your perspective for everyone’s. There are plenty of people who have a more optimistic view of this country and probably are a damn sight closer to what it means to be British than some on here. Just because you don’t see value in ‘it’ or cannot even identify with it or even identify it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Some might do with reading Roger Scrutton for a considered view.

Another perfect example, thanks!

Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.

All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

Kermit power said:

NomduJour said:

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”

The more things change…

I don't know who wrote that when, but the suet pudding is an interesting one. I'm not sure I've actually seen one in 30 years, which I guess suggests that British culture isn't exactly preserved in aspic.

Horse Racing though? I'd imagine a lot of people in Newmarket would share quite a bit of common ground with people in Chantilly, Kentucky and Ireland that they wouldn't share with anyone else in Britain, so it's hardly unique to here, is it? It was a surprise to find out that Japan is actually the largest horseracing country in the world!

George Orwell in 1941. The core of it is absolutely still valid.

Oh, thanks! Interesting that it was written by someone who was undeniably a left wing intellectual himself!

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

Kermit power said:

Another perfect example, thanks!

Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.

All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.

And yet I suspect they all identify as British. And maybe would surprise you with the commonality of their reasons why.

We'll never know, of course, but yes, I suspect they would all identify as British, and they might even be able to give you a fairly consistent view of what the generally accepted definition of Britishness is (not that we have been able to on here), but ask them what their own actual Britishness is and how can they possibly be anything other than completely different one from the other from Ashfordian's Londonian view of Britain? They live utterly different lives in almost every respect.

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

Randy Winkman said:

NomduJour said:

“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”

The more things change…

Simplifying things down to "left wing" and "right wing" and picking your side is definitely a big thing in Britain.

It’s certainly a thing for many of the more left wing to scratch their heads pondering why they don’t see a British culture. At least on this thread.

This is one of the real oddities for me. For centuries, immigration was something favoured by the right for the cheap labour and innovative thinking it could bring and resisted by the left for infringing on the lot of traditional British workers. It was also a natural consequence of Empire, something which again was more universally supported by the right.

What I don't understand is when and why some on the right suddenly decided that this mythical British Culture was somehow more important than economic progress, flipping the left/right stance on immigration on its head? Does it maybe coincide with a rise in workers' rights that make it harder to exploit the potential cheapness of immigrant labour? Or maybe the fact that as we have less labour intensive industry, and much of that which remains (such as Care) doesn't intrinsically drive economic growth there's a perception that we need less immigration?

I'm very much in favour of immigration. Not because I want to see Windsor Castle turned into a mosque or whatever ludicrous bks some people seem to think, but because after 50+ years of declining birth rates and.an ageing population which would've been catastrophically worse by now without the immigration we've already had, I want to know that all the hard work I've put into building up my pension isn't going to be for nothing because future labour shortages create the sort of inflation that'll require a metaphorical Weimar Republic wheelbarrow to carry enough cash for a loaf of bread!

People might disagree with that, but it bamboozles me that anyone can view it as being motivated by any sort of traditional left wing doctrine?

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

For what it’s worth:

I am a child of Britain: Anglo welsh-Irish primarily with Northern Irish and Scottish relatives.

I am lucky enough I guess to have been brought up in a very middle class setting which would have been standard for a certain few but was until the 60s pretty much the only view of Britain that media portrayed bar almost weird forays by Pathe into the general populace. Dad was a grammar school kid in the 40s who did well enough to get to Oxford.

So Britishness is pretty much baked in. I don’t have a Celtic core or an English core or whatever. I have a sense of Britain.

I was thankfully sent to a decent comp by my parents who didn’t approve of public schooling and eventually flourished.
But without a doubt my ‘privileged’ upbringing has skewed my sense of certainty my opportunities and am well aware that is my fortune, but not others.

However.

Being British is a remarkable start in life.
You live in the sixth largest economy. You have a standard of living envied by probably 95% of the world’s population.
Your political system is not American because it is based on 1000 years of common law and sensible precedent.
It doesn’t require a constitution because the constitution is evolving based on cases not on idiotic things like guns set in stone 300 years ago.
It doesn’t need separation of powers because it holds that parliament (the delegates of the people) are supreme under the monarch in parliament who is in the same way subject to parliament by history.
It is a country which has developed the Industrial Revolution, parliamentary democracy and is copied the world over.
It has strength through literature which is deeply embedded in its society from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley (both), Dickens, Wells, Forster, Orwell, Tolkein and Lewis, through to the recent (Fowles, Wyndham, Gaiman, etc).

It has consistently moved from autocracy to democracy and brought the world (inadvertently or not) closer to it, whether it be through the North Africa patrol, the American Revolution, the gradual removal of Empire or indeed upholding worldwide basic rights.

I suspect an awful lot of the cringe on this thread is largely due to a lack of historical knowledge.

But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.

And that will do.

All undeniably valid, but surely you'd have to admit, a rather partial, cherry-picked view of our history?

Yes, we pioneered the industrial revolution, but that didn't create modern Britain on its own. The amount of capital injected into the system by Empire and the slave trade is simply undeniable, but so too are things like prepubescent British children working long hours down mines or under mechanical looms risking life and limb, quite literally.

I don't see any of that as a reason to wring my hands in guilt and feel I should be sending all my savings to an ex-colonial to say sorry - after all, I suspect that many people would've done my family tree for me if I happened to be a direct descendent of Clive or Warren Hastings - but at the same time it does strike me as wrong that we think we can just completely pull up the drawbridge, especially when you consider the arch-hypocrisy of condemning the use of child labour in the Asian garment trade and the like. A significant element of pulling ourselves up to wealth was based on child labour, so if we deny that same opportunity to less developed economies, is it really any wonder that they then want to come here instead?

[Kermit power]

Crippo said:

It’s slightly insulting being asked to actually identify one s own culture. If you don’t know then go and work it out you bloody idiot.

Ahh... Do you find it insulting because you can't actually do it? You can't actually identify a single culture that unites a Welsh-speaking farmer in Ceredigion, a stockbroker in Barnes, a window cleaner in Derby and an unemployed layabout in Birmingham?

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

Kermit power said:

We'll never know, of course, but yes, I suspect they would all identify as British, and they might even be able to give you a fairly consistent view of what the generally accepted definition of Britishness is (not that we have been able to on here), but ask them what their own actual Britishness is and how can they possibly be anything other than completely different one from the other from Ashfordian's Londonian view of Britain? They live utterly different lives in almost every respect.

Why do you attempt to hammer in different lives into one narrative? Stormzy accuses the culture of being racist but never denies that he is British? I would suspect if you were to actually ask him why he is British I suspect it wouldn’t be a million miles away from my earlier post. I can likewise say that I find the incompatibility of many British people who seem to loathe themselves (pace this thread) mad but I don’t deny your Britishness even if you do. Surely the plurality is a bonus? Britishness isn’t as some seem to think confining: it’s pretty much great enough to be all encompassing.

It absolutely, 100% should be, but if that was actually true, why do so many complain about immigration damaging "British culture"? If Britishness is - as it should be - all encompassing and evolving, then everyone would embrace immigration, a thing which has been happening for centuries and has largely made what Britishness is today.

If you're happy that so many different individual and completely contrasting lives can fit into British culture, then I'm delighted because I think they can to, but if someone is going to try and tell me they can't, and that new arrivals are damaging British culture, I'll ask them to identify what they think British culture is, because I'm pretty sure whatever they say is either going to involve sending lots of people whose parents or even grandparents were born here "home", or they're going to have to admit that as there is no such thing as a homogenous British culture, continuing immigration isn't going to do much to damage it anyway.

[Kermit power]

Ridgemont said:

But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.

And that will do.

Jerusalem???

The National Anthem, yes. Swing Low, absolutely. "What are those men on the lawn doing with that funny shaped ball?" from the corporate boxes, quite possibly, but Jerusalem? When on earth did you last hear Jerusalem at Twickenham?

I'd be all for that or Land of Hope and Glory so that there was actually an English rather than British anthem, but 'tis but a pipe dream at the moment!

[Kermit power]

NomduJour said:

Kermit power said:

If you're happy that so many different individual and completely contrasting lives can fit into British culture, then I'm delighted because I think they can to, but if someone is going to try and tell me they can't, and that new arrivals are damaging British culture, I'll ask them to identify what they think British culture is, because I'm pretty sure whatever they say is either going to involve sending lots of people whose parents or even grandparents were born here "home", or they're going to have to admit that as there is no such thing as a homogenous British culture, continuing immigration isn't going to do much to damage it anyway

That’s a strange take - multiculturalism obviously can’t be the same thing as British culture.

Really? So you've never had a curry or a chinese? Never noticed that in addition to rather a lot of churches plus various synagogues, mosques, gudwaras and more, there are rather a lot of us who are complete atheists? Never walked into a pub in rural Wales to find you're the only person in there not speaking Welsh?

Surely you've had at least one Yorkshireman point out to you the differences between, allegedly, God's Own County and the hell that is "the South"?

[Kermit power]

NomduJour said:

chrispmartha said:

in fact our whole culture is based on a melting pot of cultures, Immigration has always played a part in our country

It’s a fashionable take, I’ll give you that.

This is Sir John Houblon, the first governor of the Bank of England as well as having been both Sheriff and Lord Mayor of London, the grandson of Hugenot refugees. He died in 1712. Fashionable indeed!!!



I'll grant you, though, that's a fair while back, and pretty esoteric, so how about this for some rather more modern, more understated British fashion?



After all, is there a single Briton alive today who can honestly say they've never once owned any M&S underwear??? Good on Polish Jewish refugee Michael Marks for not playing a part in our country by emigrating, eh?

Or maybe we might wonder how our country might look had Charles & Maurice Saatchi, children of an Iraqi Jewish refugee, not been around to do such a great job running election campaigns for Baroness Thatcher?



There are, of course, many, many more, but as this is Pistonheads, let's finish with this, surely one of the greatest, most iconic British artefacts of all time?



It's a good thing that that wasn't designed by an immigrant Greek refugee, wasn't it!

[Kermit power]

Vanden Saab said:

Kermit power said:

It absolutely, 100% should be, but if that was actually true, why do so many complain about immigration damaging "British culture"? If Britishness is - as it should be - all encompassing and evolving, then everyone would embrace immigration, a thing which has been happening for centuries and has largely made what Britishness is today.

If you're happy that so many different individual and completely contrasting lives can fit into British culture, then I'm delighted because I think they can to, but if someone is going to try and tell me they can't, and that new arrivals are damaging British culture, I'll ask them to identify what they think British culture is, because I'm pretty sure whatever they say is either going to involve sending lots of people whose parents or even grandparents were born here "home", or they're going to have to admit that as there is no such thing as a homogenous British culture, continuing immigration isn't going to do much to damage it anyway.

The problem arises because it seems those arriving do not have the same respect and acceptance of people who are different to themselves. Along with a complete lack of understanding that part of the British way is to take the piss out of ourselves and everything we do
The modern result of our previous colonialism is the understanding that you cannot force your way onto others but also that we will not be forced. It is why we left the EU and why we are pushing back against the new religious fundamentalism. As far as I can see it is not the people, after all we have had many from Hong Kong recently it is their wish to make us follow their ways.
Think of the view of the British in Benidorm as a comparison. We are quick to criticise that attitude in Spain but seem to be unable to do the same for those doing the same thing but living here.

Whilst on the surface it might seem reasonable to draw a comparison between most black and brown immigrant communities here and the Brit ex-pat communities in places like France and Spain, in reality it's anything but.

The Brits invariably are moving out of complete choice, setting their own agenda, and arriving with all the money they need to live a perfectly comfortable life. They then choose to cut themselves off from the locals because they simply can't be arsed.

Compare that to a lot of the immigrants who've arrived here in the past 8 decades. Many of them came here as British citizens, with British passports and because Britain actively appealed to them to do so. What did they find on arrival? The clichés of "No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs" signs and appallingly low wages which meant that they could only afford the very worst accommodation (exactly like the Irish 100 years previously), yet all of a sudden, they're choosing to live together and not integrate into society!

Of course things have improved dramatically since then, but even when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, racism was largely accepted in mainstream comedy and the like, and how quickly do you expect things to change? You take a generation, put them on low wages and cram them into ghettos and you're hardly likely to see the next generation suddenly become middle class and affluent, are you? Wealth begets wealth, and poverty begets poverty. Always has, and always will.

That's not to say that there aren't any undesirable immigrants; of course there are! But then there are significant numbers of undesirable natives as well. Why is it that a white criminal gang is just "a criminal gang", but if the criminals are immigrants it automatically becomes "a Pakistani gang" or whatever?

[Kermit power]

chrispmartha said:

Randy Winkman said:

Nomme de Plum said:

NomduJour said:

I can assure you that I’m not the one wanting to pretend that British culture is the same thing as multiculturalism.

It is not the oxymoron you think it is.

A quick review of our history including if it helps are Royal Family will confirm that British culture is by it's very nature multicultural.

The issue isn't British culture already being multicultural but the inability of some to understand the concept.

If you have any knowledge of quantum mechanics it may help with the understanding of the concept.

As an example - unless I'm mistaken lots of Christmas stuff we do in the UK is imported from Germany.

isn't Santa Claus from Turkey? (ironically)

I don't know, but if you want real, 100% nailed on irony, St George definitely was!

[Kermit power]

chrispmartha said:

ZedLeg said:

The question really is do you see the effect of immigration on culture as a good or bad thing. I think it's generally good, some think it's generally bad.

he seems to be saying it isn't a thing at all.

If the "he" is me in starting the thread, then the thing I don't think exists at all is the mythical "British culture" that many seem determined to defend to the death by preventing immigration from diluting and changing it, because immigration always has and always will change this country. If "British Culture" was a film in the cinema, these people would want the entire film replaced with a single frame from a bygone era.