Oath of allegiance: yeah, that'll fix it

Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, has suggested that school-leavers might want to make a pledge of allegiance to the Queen. This, he thinks, will help them feel more British.

It's at moments like this you need to check the calendar, to see which century we're in.

The idea is proposed by Lord Goldsmith in a report, commissioned by PM Gordon Brown, on British citizenship. In addition to the oath to Queen and country, the report also suggests a national holiday celebrating 'Britishness', whatever that is.

I can't be sure about this, but I suspect that the act of enoblement, the process that raises a person into the ranks of the Lords, must somehow involve the removal of the brain - at least, that part of it that connects the owner with reality.

Or maybe it's just the one batty Lord. After all, according to the BBC News story, Labour peer Baroness Kennedy said: "I think this is a serious mistake - I think it's puerile and I think it's rather silly." I have to agree.

Perhaps Lord Goldsmith dreams of sending gunboats up the Mersey or the Manchester Ship Canal to quell those unruly youths who refuse to play cricket, eat buttered crumpets and obey their nannies.

But to be serious for a moment, the concept of citizenship is important. It's arguable that Britain's multiculturalism has failed. It has led, for example, to the situation where equally batty archbishops can seriously suggest accommodating Sharia in UK law.

But I have an instinctive aversion to this form of identification with something as abstract and arbitrary as a country. There is a fine line between 'sense of nationality' and 'nationalism'. The former may help social cohesion. The latter leads more often to tyranny and oppression.

And another thing: the Queen? Since when has she represented anything remotely relevant to the lives of school-leavers, or even any other ordinary person?

I can't imagine what the ordinary teenager will make of this - something on a scale between bemusement and outright contempt, I imagine. As an idea, it deserves no better.