Hypocrites Are Us

 'I thought 'Why not Swaledale? Or medieval churches?
Or even, with all its shortcomings, The National Trust?
But what I think we are best it in England, I do not say Britain.
What I think we are best at in England, better than all the rest, is hypocrisy.

Take London. we extole its beauty and its dignity
while at the  same time we are happy to sell it off to the highest bidder.
Or the highest builder. 

We glory in Shakespeare yet we close our public libraries.

A substantial minority of our children
receive a better education than the rest
because of the social situation of the parents.

Then we wonder why things at the top do not change, or society improves.

But we know why. It is because we are hypocrites. 

Our policemen are wonderful, providing you are white,
and middle class, and don't take to the streets.

And dying in custody is what happens in South America. It doesn't happen here. 

And it gets into the language.
We think irony rather English
and are rather proud of it.

But in literary terms it is how we have it both ways. A refined hypocrisy. 

And in language these days, words that start off as good
and meaningful, terms like 'environment' and 'energy saving',
rapidly lose any credence, because converted in political,
or P.R., slogans ending up the cliched slogans
of an estate agent's brochure. A manual for hypocrisy.

In England what we do best is lip service,
and before you stampede for the Basildon Bond
or skitter for twitter I would say that I don't exempt myself
from these strictures. How should I? I am English: I am a hypocrite.'.

Alan Bennett, on being asked what England was best at in 2015.