David Cameron, this isn't Love Actually. Give up the greatness guff

David Cameron, this isn't Love Actually. Give up on the greatness guff

Cameron's 'small island' speech tries to channel the urbane Hugh Grant but ends up as playing-fields-of-Eton hogwash
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Stephen Moss

theguardian.com, Friday 6 September 2013 18.32 BST

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David Cameron and his apparent inspiration, Hugh Grant as a fictional PM in Love Actually. Photograph: Novosti / Rex


Poor David Cameron. Nothing is going quite right for him at the moment. Take his ridiculous "Love Actually" speech, an off-the-cuff eulogy to the UK delivered in response to alleged Russian jibes that Britain is a minnow in the world's vast ocean. Cameron is said to have got very little sleep last night and it shows, because none of his speech stacks up.


"Britain may be a small island, but I would challenge anyone to find a country with a prouder history, a bigger heart or greater resilience"

Well, for a start Britain – the landmass that comprises England, Scotland and Wales – is not a particularly small island. It is the ninth biggest in the world. Smaller, admittedly, than Baffin Island but marginally more powerful, even if a football match between the two would be hard to call.

More to the point, everyone makes the claim that their country has the proudest history of all. Peruvians, Paraguayans, Papua New Guineans, you name it, they'll all put their arms across their chests and swear fealty to their beloved country. You can bet Baffin Islanders, Moldovans and even the inhabitants of the "Most Serene Republic of San Marino" will claim the proudest history of all. It's human nature. And a bit silly.


"Britain is an island that has helped to clear the European continent of fascism – and was resolute in doing that throughout world war two."

This is at the very least arguable. By being arch-appeasers during the 1930s, the UK helped make Hitler possible. Its non-intervention in the Spanish civil war, as Germany sent its air force to bomb republican positions, was especially heinous. After 1940 we did our bit, but it's a myth that the Battle of Britain alone saved us or that the UK won the war. Hitler lost interest and looked east, and it was on the eastern front – at the cost of countless Russian lives – that Germany was ultimately beaten.


"Britain is an island that helped to abolish slavery."


OK, yes, allowable once morality kicked in at the start of the 19th century, but that was only after we had profited from slavery for 300 years. And as recent documents revealed, the slave traders – including ancestors of David Cameron – were given huge payments in compensation for their losses.


"Britain has invented most of the things worth inventing."

Oh for goodness sake, what about the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Chinese, Indians? Until about 1500 the countries that now make up the UK were a complete irrelevance – true minnows in the global pond – while China was the centre of the world. The Chinese invented gunpowder, printing, banknotes, the blast furnace, the toothbrush, fishing reels, harnesses and stirrups for horses, kites, nail polish, porcelain, playing cards and puppets. They were also the first people to domesticate goldfish.


"Including, every sport currently played around the world."

Sorry, but the ancient Greeks played rugby; the Chinese and the Romans played football (though not against each other); and cricket is probably Dutch. British blazers codified a lot of these games c1880, but they didn't invent them. Basketball and volleyball are American; baseball is French; and as for Greco-Roman wrestling, the clue is probably in the name.


We are "responsible for art, literature and music that delights the entire world", according to Cameron, who goes on to praise "our contribution to philosophy and world civilisation".

Well, up to a point, but are we really so special?

We would get an A* for literature and score highly for pop. We can hold our own in philosophy – David Hume could indeed out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel. But in art, classical music and film we would be struggling, and facing a stern Govian lecture. We may not quite be the "Land ohne Musik" of Germanic imagination – Purcell, Elgar and Britten would make the all-time composers' top 40 – but we can't match Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, and that's just one letter.

Hugh Grant, in the real Love Actually speech, made the same point as Cameron but less clunkily. "We may be a small country, but we are a great one too … Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter, David Beckham's right foot… David Beckham's left foot." Cue winsome smiles all round, except from the US president from whom he was distancing himself.

Cameron probably realised he had gone over the top, because when he repeated the remarks later he bracketed One Direction with Shakespeare, Elgar and the Beatles as great British icons. One of his advisers had presumably suggested he try to live up to the urbane, knowing Hugh Grant template. But he can't quite do it, because he really believes this sub-Churchillian, playing-fields-of-Eton hogwash. One of our greatest assets is our collective sense of humour. Another is – or used to be – our stiff-upper-lipped modesty. If you need to boast of your greatness, it probably means you are not very great.