Test Your Britishness

The former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has suggested that all British teenage Citizens should swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and Country.

As expected, the usual shrill voices have immediately knee-jerked the idea into the long grass. Well I think all these Britishship Pledges and Citizenness Tests are an excellent plan, and humbly submit the following fifteen questions for inclusion into a Citizenshipness Test which every British schoolchild should sit, to ensure that they have a proper British grounding in British attitudes and British culture. And if any British child gets them wrong then they aren't properly British after all, so there.

They are all quotes from famous Britons, with some words removed. You, the prospective Citizen, have to fill in the blanks. Answers at the bottom of the page.



1. "I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to ___ ___ ___." - EM Forster

2. "Power tends to ___, and absolute power ___ absolutely." - Lord Acton

3. "There's terrific merit in having no sense of humour, no sense of irony, practically no sense of anything at all. If you're born with these so-called defects you have a very good chance of getting ___ ___ ___." - Peter Cook

4. "Patriotism is the virtue of the ___." - Oscar Wilde

5. "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to ___ ___ ___." - Douglas Adams

6. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a ___." - Samuel Johnson

7. "When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I ___ ___ for ___ ___ when I come home." - Winston Churchill

8. "Mankind are, in all ages, caught by the same baits: The same tricks, played over and over again, still ___ them. The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to ___ and ___; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy." - David Hume

9. "The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but ___." - Sir Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor)

10. "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it ___, and applying the ___ ___." - Sir Ernest Benn (Tony Benn's uncle)

11. "The national anthem belongs to the eighteenth century. In it you find us ordering God about to do our ___ ___ ___." - George Bernard Shaw

12. "I think that no-one who's gone abroad should be allowed back in the country. I mean, blimey! Blimey! If they're not keen enough to stay here when they're here, why should we allow them back, at the taxpayer's expense? I mean, be fair! I mean, I don't ___ ___, do I?" - Prof. Enid Gumby

13. "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for ___ ___." - Bertrand Russell

14. "God Save The Queen. The ___ ___." - Sex Pistols

15. "Lord Goldsmith is a ___ ___." - Larry Teabag





Answers:

1. "betray my country"
2. "corrupt... corrupts"
3. "to the top"
4. "vicious"
5. "do the job"
6. "scoundrel"
7. "make up [for] lost time"
8. "trepan... power [and] tyranny"
9. "himself"
10. "incorrectly... wrong remedy"
11. "political dirty work"
12. "eat squirrels"
13. "trivial reasons"
14. "fascist regime"
15. "suppurating fuckstick"