Petition Inaugurate a Celebration of Britain

With the Parliamentary expenses scandal, the ongoing financial crisis and the phone hacking revelations, our national morale had already taken rather a battering. The August 2011 riots didn’t help. Much of the commentary following the riots focussed on the absence of positive role models and aspiration from the lives of many of those involved. That problem exists on the national scale too. Look at the newspapers recently: the words “British” and “success” seldom share a page let alone a sentence. This defeatism can easily become self-fulfilling and we should try to tackle it. The Government should inaugurate an annual Celebration of Britain in which the year’s success stories can be held up for congratulation and emulation. An event at the Royal Albert Hall showcasing our bravest soldiers, most successful entrepreneurs, leading academics, champion sportsmen, most creative artists and most dedicated volunteers would help raise national morale and ambition.