Sunder Katwala: To know more about the First World War is also to know more about Britain today

Sunder Katwala is the Director of British Future. Follow Sunder on Twitter.

"You started it. You invaded Poland" shouted Basil Fawlty, as the hapless Torquay hotelier's attempt to not mention the war to his German guests unravelled into goose-stepping embarassment.  The Fawlty Towers' satire on the British cultural obsession with Hitler and the Nazis still strikes a chord, 30 years on. The cultural power of the Second World War could even threaten to overshadow next year's First World War centenary.

"You started it. You invaded Belgium" is what Basil might have shouted at his guests if he had been desperately trying not to mention not that war, but the one which came first. Yet that joke would have been lost on most people. For Poland is still the most popular choice when people are asked to identify the cause of Britain's 1914 declaration of war on Germany, which came almost exactly 99 years ago. Just 13 per cent recall enough of the story of "plucky little Belgium" to get the answer right.

Sunder Katwala: It's time for an English national anthem from England's rugby team

Sunder Katwala is Director of British Future, whose report 'This Sceptred Isle' can be read on www.britishfuture.org.

It would be strange, yet it seems to be true, that it should be England, the land of Shakespeare, which today seems uncertain about how to find its modern voice.

Yet This Sceptred Isle, a report published by British Future today to mark St George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday captures why mainstream politicians need to speak about England’s place within the reshaped United Kingdom after devolution.

Only a slim majority, six out of ten, of the English associate the St George's Cross with pride and patriotism, which is surely the main point of a national flag, according to YouGov’s polling for the report. More than eight out of ten in Scotland and Wales can say that of their flags, while 80% of the English do see the Union flag as patriotic too. But as many as one in three of the under 40s think of racism and extremism when they see England's national flag. Conservatives are three times as likely to see extremism in the English flag (17%) as the Union Jack (6%).

That suggests that the extreme street hooligans of the English Defence League have toxified our national flag, but should share the blame with the democratic politicians who have failed to speak up for the inclusive patriotism of the English majority.