What is it to be English?

Gordon Brown, the chancellor, launched his debate on the meaning of Britishness at the very time that a few of my friends had been pondering their sense of Englishness. I sometimes think it is tougher to be English than it is to be British.

The English don't have the same identifying props that the Scots have. We don't have tartans, kilts or sporrans. We don't have leprechauns or shamrocks like the Irish. We don't have Eisteddfods like the Welsh.

I just can't get excited by Morris dancing or mumming. Our patron saint wasn't English and, as a Yorkshireman, I have divided loyalties about our national flower that doubles as my county flower.

Is it a matter of cuisine - roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? No, that's Yorkshire pudding, not English pudding.

We don't have our own national anthem, just the British one they sing for the British monarch of German descent. We don't have our own parliament although we're fortunate to have the services of plenty of Scots to run it for us.

So what do we have? We seem to have an enormous sense of fair play, tolerance but also diffidence. We have a sense of our history, although even that lets us down when we recall the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and our subversion under a feudal system controlled by an enduring bunch of French aristocrats, some of whom continue to cling on to their ancient privileges within the House of Lords.

We are also saddled with an insipid London-centric imagery of red buses, beefeaters, friendly policemen, black taxis and the underground map. In cinema we have never quite cast off that Mary Poppins stereotype of Dick Van Dyke-style chirpy cockneys and bowler-hatted bankers walking to work past little old ladies feeding the birds at St Paul's.

There must be more to England than that. It cannot simply be about Cambridge straw boaters or hedgerows, village cricket or John Major's warm beer. It has to be about something more than the Archers, the Women's Institute, the White Cliffs of Dover and the National Trust.

I'm happy with the Oak tree and the Elizabethan legacy of Shakespeare. I suppose that's the answer: Englishness, real Englishness is expressed through our wonderful literature and our language. When Wordsworth and Coleridge were wandering the Lake District, when the Brontes were picking bilberries on the wind-swept Haworth moors, when Jane Austen was observing society in the west country and Chaucer was describing his Canterbury pilgrims, each of them was laying down a rich English legacy for future generations.

That we English share this legacy with our neighbours and the rest of the world is something about which we should take pride. But Englishness is not something we should take for granted. If it still matters to be British, as I hope it does, there must still be room for the place we know as England. It's not dead yet.

British Library - balancing the books

Criticising landmark developments is the great British disease. The Channel Tunnel, the Millennium Dome, Wembley Stadium - they never had a chance. Now it's the turn of the Olympic complex. We wanted the Olympics in the UK. I remember cheering when I heard we had won the bid. But already the carping has started. Any big project such as this is going to incur cost overruns. It goes with the territory.

Do you remember how people criticised the British Library as a white elephant? It cost £500m and took 20 years to build from concept to opening. Even Prince Charles couldn't resist a jibe, describing it as a "secret police building." He was wrong. The British Library is a magnificent building, particularly on the inside which must offer some of the best facilities for undertaking concentrated work that I have found anywhere.

Part of its secret is what is not there: no telephones, no interruptions, no noise. Instead there is comfortable seating with strong, broad desks and an efficient ordering and delivery service. More than that, for those of us who use it,the service is a tangible return for the money we pay in taxes.

A well stocked, efficient library, offering free access to those of a nation's citizens who wish to read and research in quiet contemplation must form the bedrock of any reasonable definition of civilization. The only improvement that could and should be made to the British Library is to extend its reading services to other locations outside London.

But this isn't going to happen. What should be part of our birthright, the principle of unfettered access to one of the world's greatest collections of the written word, is under threat. The British Library has warned that it might need to start charging readers for its services, if the Treasury goes ahead with proposed cuts to its budget.

I hope this is no more than posturing, the sort of heavyweight barging that always takes place when Government departments are competing for their slice of the pie. My reading pass is a treasured possession. I love the British Library in the same way that I love the British Museum and the National Gallery. I love them most of all because their doors are open, offering free entry to all who visit.

You might run the world's biggest company and rub shoulders with the power elite every year in Davos, but if you want to see the Wilton Diptych or Vermeer's Young Woman seated at a Virginal you will have no better view than the man on the Clapham omnibus.

Last week the Government was starting a debate on Britishness. For me it starts with fair play and free access. The British Library didn't charge Lenin or Marx. I hope it won't charge me.