Englishness has been a popular topic for a long time, but it was never as controversially contested as it is now. When not only the Prime Minister but also writers such as Julian Barnes and pop singers like Billy Bragg feel that they have to get involved in the debates, then it comes as no surprise that scholars and journalists have adopted Englishness as one of their favourite topics, too. Long gone are declarations on the 'specific characteristics' of the English and the belief in the superiority of the race, and yet Englishness has remained a hot issue in our own days. The terms of the debate, however, have shifted considerably. First, the belief in Englishness as an essence, as 'a sort of collective "one true self"' that is 'naturally' shared by everyone belonging to that culture, has been discarded and substituted by a whole range of new concepts, approaches and models of explanation. There is a widespread consensus now that Englishness is a construct, and that 'no description of Britain is ideologically innocent, a mere representation of what is there, simply, positively, naturally'.^ Secondly, it is not possible any more to gloss over cultural differences and assume that there is an easily definable group of people whose characteristics can be subsumed under the umbrella term 'Englishness'. Instead, the question of who does and who does not belong to that group is hotly contested. Furthermore, the traditional, often unthinking mix-up of Englishness and Britishness ' Stuart Hall, 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora', in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), p. 223. Hall draws attention to the fact that this conception of cultural identity resonates in the attempts of the black diaspora to discover 'the essence' of their unique experience. Manfred Pfister, 'Editorial', in The Discovery of Britain {Journal for the Study of Brit-
