Once more the English are having an identity crisis. National pride has been dented following ugly scenes of tattooed Englishmen rampaging through the streets of Marseille; English patriots talk of abolishing the National Anthem and replacing it with an "English" version; meanwhile English culture is subsumed by ethnic multi-culturalism.
Everyone has their own ideas about what makes up the English culture, but there is no doubt that as the power of English nationalism and the National Front receded in the 1990s, Labour's promotion of everything British or English was bound up in a confident national mood that had been missing for many years.
Usually the temperature of the English identity is taken when English men and women travel abroad and the British press attempts a health-check on the state of the nation, if only a section of it. Inevitably the tribe of English fans travelling to the World Cup in France has borne the mantle of representing the English identity in all its colours and whims and endless analysis has been devoted to just what is "England, Our England."
What it appears to be, according to the Guardian's columnist, Decca Aitkenhead, is a nation painfully short in the cultural identity department with only Morris dancing and Big Ben to offer the tourists.
"The English clearly never had time to learn to dance, or enjoy music, or tell a good anecdote, or take pleasure in dressing up, and it shows. They wear clothes they are painfully unsure about, dance uneasily to music they don't know, and tell each other bad jokes they heard on Radio 1 . . .," she wrote recently.
The problem for the English, she says, is their tendency to display irony, scepticism and irreverence towards authority by the bucket-load, but very little else. The "over-serious" English don't know how to have a good time and when things go wrong they look around for anyone but themselves to blame - the usual culprits being the Scots, Welsh, Irish or ethnic communities, who in contrast delight in their vibrant cultures. Louise Woodward said it was the "British in me" that prevented her from crying during her trial.
The dilemma of English identity is, however, confined to the working class. Defined in recent history by the Protestant work ethic and the Industrial Revolution, Ms Aitkenhead says it is no surprise that most thuggery carried out by the English has its roots in the working class rather than the middle class.
It may be that the middle class is better equipped to ride the highs and lows of attacks upon its but working class males - stripped of their traditional jobs in mines and factories, have had a tougher time of it.
Of course, the thugs in France simply enjoy violence and there is little more to say by way of explanation. For that reason it is perhaps disingenuous to say they represent the whole picture when talking about the crisis in the English identity.
The Independent asked recently: "Can we learn to love ourselves, and keep our place on the liberal left?" It posed the question that as the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish hurried towards various forms of independence, the breakdown of direct rule from Westminster need not be the cue for mass English angst.
If only English radicals could redesign themselves as progressives, then in contrast to the pessimistic Ms Aitkenhead, they might construct "a patriotism for non-victims, one which is not triumphalist but progressive". All it takes, the Independent says, is a re-acquaintance with English history, a chance to reclaim the flag of St George and an English identity built on democracy, fairness and liberty.
The liberals should rejoice in the idea of rebellion and revolution espoused by Thomas Paine.
They must not entirely discard the Empire building of the past, but they should also delight in Britain's attempt at a multi-cultural society epitomised by the World Cup song, Vindaloo.
Growing ever weary with the Cool Britannia tag, a writer in the Big Issue recently observed that in a few years time we would see the whole idea re-packaged and sold to tourists as a post-modern take on British history.
"There will probably be a nostalgic Cool Britannia theme park in years to come," he said, "and documentaries about how great it all was."
Cool Britannia has undoubtedly been helpful in promoting industry, but the English will certainly need more than Big Ben and Thomas Paine to get them through the next millennium.
Perhaps borrowing a set of Jamaican steel drums to play alongside the Morris Dancers might work?