I didn't have high hopes for this book - having decided to read it after it was referred to a couple of times in other things.
I felt you could have got rid of a couple of chapters and the book would still have made its point, also the way that Billy jumped backwards and forwards in time was unhelpful. This jumbling of the chronology did not seem to add anything to the argument and did not appear to be an intentional juxtaposing of eras, and even if it was intentional for me it was mostly irritating.
What was worse than this however was the way the Billy without any apparent self-awareness decided to have his cake and eat it by showing simultaneously that the working class radicalism that he delights in was both a major break from the old political order that gave us Magna Carta and the Great Reform Act and also the natural heir to that tradition.
Also it is important to note his idealisation of the working class and vilification of the rest of us - which through the force of argument he tries to leave as unchallengeable. However as someone without a working class family tree this move is unhelpful.
Yet while my forebears have enjoyed relative wealth I don't think them spent as much of their time trampling the poor as Billy seems to make out and you are left with the sense that the book will embrace everyone as English except those of the traditional upper and middle classes.
While the historical narrative might have some merit and the anecdotes of Bragg family life down the ages of some interest, the programme he puts forward for consolidating the values of England are laughable.
He think we need a written constitution the core principles of which will be summed up in a few bullet points that can be printed on the bad of our ID cares as a constant reminder of both our rights and responsibilities.
This constitution will be written via a nationwide network of local meetings feeding their ideas into a central drafting committee and adopted by popular vote.
With this as the 'answer' and hopes that the book might be a useful contribution to the civic life of the nation are well and truly dashed.
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