The body of recent historical explorations of Englishness and Britishness can seem practically interminable. To some, this work is more a cause than a product of the dynamic underlying recent constitutional changes in the United Kingdom. Linda Colley, in particular, is singled out for vituperation by right-wing commentators for an alleged attempt to depict the United Kingdom as “an artificial creation, built from opposition to Frenchmen and Catholics and lacking any form of coherent cultural core,” thus preparing the ground for its wilful destruction by the Blair government. Yet others have suggested that Colley overstated the hegemony of the idea of Britishness among the nations of the United Kingdom. It is contended that British identity penetrated in England to a unique degree, a process which has produced long-term imbalance and instability in the United Kingdom. Tom Nairn thus blamed English arrogance for this instability. For other commentators the historical absence of a tangible demand for English self-government is to be problematized and regarded as an indication of “backwardness.” As Bernard Crick wrote: “England is the problem. Because English nationalism is suppressed and not explicit, it is soured, not wholly in control of its own reactions and is difficult to deal with by the other nations.”