Why only in future pandemics? As long as England has no government of its own, the UK Government and its representatives should always make clear what they mean by ambiguous phrases like 'across the country'.

#SayEngland #ThatsDevolved

It concludes:

"In future pandemics, the UK government should take care to set out the geographical application of its announcements specifically and avoid using imprecise language."

Point taken. Though the exceptionalism of Brexit was deeply polarising and shows the limitations of that approach.

Your initial question was what is uniquely English.

I'm not claiming that anything is uniquely English or British, and I don't think it's useful or necessary to make people define their identity in that way.

I haven't said anything is uniquely British.

Popular sovereignty - "we the people" - isn't decided by social scientists looking for unique cultural traits.

The "we" - the nation - is self-defining. Though unique cultural traits might strengthen national sentiment.

And, possibly, a collective sense of obligation or purpose.

These are lacking between Ukraine and Russia. And, dare I say it, increasingly between the nations of the UK.

But national identities are not set in stone. Nor are nations homogenous (there's little commonality between Alaska and Hawaii, yet both might feel strongly American). What makes a nation is not shared traits but, rather, a collective sense of self.

The onus is then on someone to prove their national identity by reeling off a list of cultural traits that are specific to that national identity.

It's an interesting question, and one that my Ukrainian guests have been grappling with. Russian occupiers tell them they're basically Russian, that there's not much 'unique' about them.

Says @ailsahenderson.bsky.social, if you read the article.

What does uniqueness have to do with it? Is that what you think national identity equates to?

Here's Starmer invoking 'the British people' in regard to the abolishment of NHS England.
bsky.app/profile/pete...

Westminster politicians routinely fail to specify that their health announcements relate to England and prefer to talk about 'the NHS' rather than 'NHS England', so the abolition of NHS England will make little difference as far as #SayEngland and #ThatsDevolved are concerned.

Surely one of the reasons that the issue of ethnicity is so totemic in discussions about Englishness and who belongs, is that English identity cannot rely on democracy, representation and citizenship, because Britain denies us the normal trappings of nationhood.