A general election campaign gives us the opportunity to focus on what it is that we hold dear in this unique country of ours. Our picturesque high streets, peppered with their quaint little branches of Gap, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. The sound of Celine Dion blasting out of a Nissan Sunny as it screeches past the graffiti tags under the Daewoo hoarding. An evening spent at a Tex-Mex bar, sipping a Bud and watching the Miami Dolphins on Sky Sports Extra. These are sights that make this happy land so special, these are the things that make our culture and language so unique.
Patriotism is like germ warfare.
I'd rather we didn't deploy it because it is so hideous when you see it used back on you by the other side. One Conservative MP is using his election address to compare the European Union with Nazi Germany. As we have already seen in this election, the flip side of the patriotism coin can be xenophobia. Asylum seekers are not an issue that affect the everyday lives of any of us, and yet it was built up as this terrible problem to try and appeal to the worst instincts of the electorate. In fact insects generally are the one issue that the politicians are too scared to face up to in this campaign.