For years I begged the BBC to celebrate St George’s Day, only to be met with indifference and occasionally contempt. Now I’m begging them NOT to because whenever they do make a show about Englishness it’s either begrudged and misleading or infected with fashionable metropolitan prejudices. Television types clutch at their pearls whenever celebrating our heritage is suggested. That kind of cultural festivity is perfectly fine for the Scots, Welsh and Irish, but to our po-faced elite, St George’s Day is somehow inherently dodgy.

It has been this way since the 1930s when some of England’s most over-educated fools saw Soviet Communism as an earthly paradise and our own country as tainted by the stains of imperialism. As George Orwell noted: “England is perhaps the only great country where intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.”

Since Stalin’s crimes against humanity were exposed, Marxist intellectuals have weaponised their self-loathing by supporting foreign despots and/or the schizophrenic Greens. The only flag many MPs seem to treasure is blue with 12 gold stars.

Some years ago, when Channel 4 were making a documentary about Englishness, I let them film at a St George’s Day event I promoted in Purfleet, Essex. There were a few black and Asian people there, but strangely none were caught on camera.

It was soon clear why. It was a set-up. The show, 100% English, asked people to take a DNA test. Their undeclared purpose was to find foreign ancestry in our genes and therefore declare that Englishness was a myth.

Even though the company behind the test explicitly stated that it could not be used to find immediate ancestors. And you could apply the same tests to every European country and get similar results without anyone questioning their right to nationhood.

Only the Nazis and C4 think of patriotism in terms of race.

The BBC’s problem with St George’s Day is longstanding. EastEnders celebrated American Independence Day, the French Revolution, and Diwali, long before St George got a look in. When it did, it was an Alfie Moon scam. In 2012, they did it properly. Just once.

In 2000, they made a documentary about Englishness, filming me in a rather up-market rose garden while Billy Bragg (BBC-friendly folk singer, voice like a ruptured donkey) gave his alternative view against the background of a council estate I had actually lived on!

Billy was the voice of the people, you see, even though he resided in a 25-room Victorian mansion in Dorset at the time…

This disdain is not confined to broadcasters. English history is either not taught in schools or distorted. Gordon Brown’s Britishness lessons were only taught in English schools, not Welsh or Scottish ones.

The Metropolitan Police ruled London taxis can’t sport the English flag. Blair’s Labour government tried to split England into regions – better to fit into the Euro-mincer. Havering council recently cancelled a St George’s Day scouts’ parade on ‘safety’ grounds.

Yet we have much to be proud of. As Ian Dury once sang: “There are jewels in the crown of England’s glory, too numerous to mention but a few.”

Authors, comedians, dramatists, philosophers, scientists, inventors, poets, artists, musicians, film-makers, seaside postcards, youth cults, and sporting greats.

Football, cricket, rugby, lawn tennis, badminton, darts, and rounders all started here, along with modern boxing.

Humans have built empires since the third century BC. Ours was more benign than most. The Royal Navy sank the slave trade. This sceptred isle gave the world trade unions, Wat Tyler, Robin Hood and Parliamentary democracy.

I’d throw in a breed of screen Englishmen played by the likes of David Niven, Richard Attenborough and Ian Carmichael who were solid, reliable, decent, and can-do without being brash or boorish; well-mannered without being wet.

There are still pubs, villages and scooter clubs who hold annual St George’s Day events. Growing up in post-rationing south-east London, we always celebrated St George, the women wearing red roses, the men sinking pints of English ale. (I filmed an event like this in 1990s show Without Walls: The National Alf, still on YouTube).

As an Englishman, I don’t hate other cultures. I just want to celebrate mine.

As Devon folk duo Show Of Hands sing in their song Roots: “I’ve lost St George in the Union Jack, it’s my flag too and I want it back.”