These days, whenever Ireland sneezes, it is invariably England which catches a cold, says Declan Kiberd.
Last week, as Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams joked over the teething problems of their devolved administration in Belfast, readers of the Sunday Telegraphwoke up to an even more terrifying front-page story. A poll revealed that 68 per cent of English voters want their own national parliament. Ungrateful rotters. Even worse, it showed that nearly half seek the total break-up of Britain.
If Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw had lived to read these headlines, they would have felt utterly vindicated. For both men always argued that England was the last and most completely subjugated of all the British colonies. "Home Rule for England" was one of Shaw's favourite slogans; and whenever he was asked by Londoners for the meaning of those spine-chilling words "Sinn Féin", he would reply with a glint: "It is the Irish for John Bull".
For almost two centuries, ideas and images of Englishness - from roast beef to Burberry coats to the plays of Shakespeare - have been subsumed under the sign of Britishness, thereby depriving English people of a distinct and defined identity. In the years of high imperialism, when such images were adapted as a kind of international style, that seemed tolerable to many of them; but nowadays (in the words of historian David Starkey) "the English feel distinctly underdressed in the fashion parade of nations."
That is why the flag of St George is flown daily by the "barmy army" which supports the Poms in the current cricket series Down Under, and by those facepainted rugby masochists who turn up for regular doses of sporting mortification this year at Twickenham. The Union Jack is passé and Cool Britannia is gone.
Mind you, those T elegrapheditorialists should have seen all this coming. Back in 1998, when Tony Blair signed the Belfast Agreement, few journalists took the trouble to read that rather lengthy document in full. But on page 16, the following sentence appeared to describe the possible workings of an east-west council for these islands: "Membership of the British-Irish council will comprise representatives of the British and Irish governments, devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, when established, and, if appropriate, elsewhere in the United Kingdom, together with representatives of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."
The seemingly innocuous phrase, "elsewhere in the United Kingdom", raised the question that England itself might have an unresolved national question, soluble only by a parliament of its own. That view has been taken not just by Little Englanders like Enoch Powell but by socialists like George Orwell, who have all agreed that England is a work-in-progress.
Far from being backward, nationalism is the future. There were 50 nation states when the UN was founded in 1945 - now there are more than 200. Post-colonies like Ireland and India are often accused of applying outdated mechanisms (bewigged judges, obsolete laws) on their own people, but maybe the process is more complicated.
Perhaps the former colonies also contain the futuristic ideas which will finally liberate Old Blighty - separation of church and state (something which Prince Charles seems to favour), expropriation of a landed aristocracy, even a home rule parliament. After all, colonies were laboratories whose more successful experiments were to be emulated "back home".
The poll comes on the eve of a battle between British Labour and Scottish Nationalists for control of the Edinburgh parliament. Some 60 per cent of English voters resent the higher spending-per-head by central government on Scots than on themselves. "They have their cake and eat it," moaned Edwina Currie, "and then we pay." English people question the right of Scottish MPs at Westminster to make laws on solely English concerns; 62 per cent of English voters want the Scottish MPs stripped of this right - and being fair people, almost half of Scots polled agreed with that.
In the sporting arenas, most Scots back "anyone but England", whereas 70 per cent of the English would support Scotland if it were playing any nation other than their own. Sheridan Morley says he feels "more abroad in England than in the US", and tennis star Andy Murray never supports the English soccer team, despite all those pretty Essex girls who cheer his every shot at Wimbledon.
When Blair created localised assemblies, he may have hoped to protect the union by a "safety valve" which devolved some powers. But he must now be stunned to find that 48 per cent of his people want total English independence and that this sentiment is strongest of all among the young.
So far, the wittiest comment on all this has come from novelist AL Kennedy: "People are enthusiastic about Scottish independence but anyone in a position to take power should be sent to Norway at once." Or else maybe to Tiger Ireland, where we have had 85 years of hard practice at how best to misgovern ourselves?