In the UK, you know you’re working class if you own one of these…
Candide
roman catholic by birth; scientific atheist by choice; sinner by merit. blogging on brains, evolution and language. gaidhlig-speaking neuroscience student at oxford. likes to
Question Everything!
“i’m not usually very proud of being British, but you can’t help making the comparison.” - Richard Dawkins
Everytime I get given an English tenner at work, I think of this quote.
Contraception is sometimes attacked as ‘unnatural’. So it is, very unnatural. The trouble is, so is the welfare state. I think that most of us believe the welfare state is highly desirable. But you cannot have an unnatural welfare state, unless you also have unnatural birth-control, otherwise the end result will be misery even greater than that which obtains in nature. The welfare state is perhaps the greatest altruistic system the animal kingdom has ever known. But any altruistic system is inherently unstable, beacuse it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it. Individual humans who have more children than they are capable of rearing are probably too ignorant in most cases to be accused of conscious malevolent exploitation. Powerful institutions and leaders who deliberately encourage them to do so seem to me less free from suspicion
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976 (via paleblued0t)
This is such a British quote! Of course we love Beveridge, and the NHS, and the Welfare State in Britain, but the far-right groups who condemn contraception in the US also tend to resist federal interference in state health and social policy, don’t they?
Dawkins assumes we all find the welfare state highly desireable, but the exact people who dislike contraception, also despise the notion of the welfare state.
Boy am I glad to be British!
1 year ago - 
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““For the Scots, this is going to be decided 80 percent from the heart and 20 percent from the mind. I tell ye, I’m not the kind to wear a kilt at weddings, but I am Scottish before I am British. and I know a good many of us want our rightful independence back.””—
Alistair Hunter, a 54-year-old Scottish nationalist working for the city of Edinburgh, commenting on Scotland’s drive to re-establish its independence, in “Scotland Moves Toward Vote on Independence.”
I’m voting YES just to see what happens!
1 year ago - 3
3 
England isnt a country, its part of the UK omg
I hate to break this to you but england is a country…
you cant get English passports or be and English citizen, passports say United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England isnt a country its a region of the UK
If that isn’t proof, ask anyone in the UK. They’ll tell you the same.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is one country made up of two kingdoms: Scotland and England, one principality: Wales, and one province: Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is a separate country. This is if we take country to mean a sovereign state that is a member of the UN.
However, this isn’t always the best definition. Historically, there is undeniably a nation called England, a nation called Scotland, even if they aren’t independent nation-states in their own right. Its up to people whether they want to consider England a country in its own right - because of its history, it would be silly not to. Just because its not a real political entity on the international stage doesn’t mean it isn’t a cultural or historical country…
People worry too much about definitions. Meanings exist outside the words. Okay if you’re an international lawyer you might not class England as a ‘proper’ country but that’s irrelevant when it comes to following the England football team, or attending the Church of England, or learning about the history of England…
(Source: youknowyourebritishwhen, via fdays)
