This article, for me, shows one of the problematic side-effects with a national culture built on banging on about “British values” all the time: nobody discussed lockdown for the U.K. because it was believed that the British wouldn’t tolerate it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci-idUSKBN21P1VF

“the British scientists assumed that such drastic actions would never be acceptable in a democracy like the UK”. But why did they think that? Because of the continual banging on about the British as uniquely freedom-loving, governed by consent, as “democracy” as innately British.

It’s what happens if you decide that the lesson of WW2 is that the fighting spirit of Brits (standing alone, of course) can beat anything. But actually the war was a moment when the British government extended their powers into almost every aspect of people’s lives.

And the British didn’t just tolerate it, they embraced it! Just as British people today ring the police to report their neighbours for a second walk, WW2 Mass Observation material showed that many wanted people prosecuted *for treason* if they bought black market eggs and sugar.

It’s not the only root of all this, obviously. But it shows how that British Values stuff is really pernicious, and how lessons from history can be cherry-picked to support the most politically-comforting narrative.

(“The British are a freedom-loving people who are democratic to their bones” stuff is also pernicious because it can be used to shroud all sorts of not-very-democratic behaviour — because it couldn’t happen here! — as well as stopping the govt from taking action, as with this.)